


If you're Mother Mary

by LightDescending



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Catholic Guilt, Character Study, Conversations, F/F, Fix-it fic, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Grace Harper Lives, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Martyr Complex, Mixed POV, Motherhood, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy Phobia, Recovery, Resilience, Resolving Issues, Self-Destruction, Shame, Trauma, gay repression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23161630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightDescending/pseuds/LightDescending
Summary: "Fine, let someone else be Mother Mary for a while."”If you're Mother Mary, why do I so wanna beat the shit out of you?"A fic that explores the idea of what a legacy means in a potentially apocalyptic world, compulsory motherhood, Catholicism, gender dysphoria, and the possibility of resolving guilt or shame.
Relationships: Grace Harper/Dani Ramos, Sarah Connor & Dani Ramos, Sarah Connor & Grace Harper
Comments: 50
Kudos: 138





	1. Dani

**Author's Note:**

> A note before we begin:  
> This fic discusses complex relationships to gender and touches on a number of other topics; each chapter has specific content notes in addition to the tags on the fic. Please read these!
> 
> After over a month of work and multiple rounds of revision, I'm ready to start posting this one! Specific credits at the end of the fic’s final chapter, but I received a great deal of help, encouragement, and beta-reading from [starfoozle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfoozle), [Tyellas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas), and [dire_quail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dire_quail/), without whom this fic wouldn’t exist (thank you all so much!).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Surely, at any minute, either Grace or Sarah will take it all back. Tell her that there’s been a mistake, and she’s not the one this… Terminator thing is after. The longer that things go on without something of that nature happening, the closer Dani gets to admitting that this is real. Like receiving prophecy. Not even the story Grace tells her about how the world will end over the span of three days is quite enough. No matter how vivid the details._   
>  _So claiming that she’s nothing, she’s nobody -- that’s Dani’s last attempt to resist this narrative._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter notes** : Gay repression; cultural Catholicism; voluntary sterilization in response to a pregnancy phobia and implied fears re: sexual violence; internalized shame/guilt.

_And let me guess – Dani gives birth to the one man who can stop it._

* * *

**i.**

Dani is 8 years old and contemplating the image of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe that hangs in the alcove near their apartment door. La Virgen holds her hands together in front of her chest. Her eyes are cast downward, like the women Dani sees at church on Sundays who thread wooden or glass rosary beads between their fingers and mutter prayers under their breath: _Que La Virgen de Guadalupe y La Virgen del Perpetuo Socorro y La Virgen del Rosario y La Virgen del Carmen y La Inmaculada Concepción…_ On the paper captured behind glass and framed by wood painted gold, Dani can see that her deep turquoise robes are spotted with stars. 

Her mama and papi are calling for her and Diego, _vámonos_! or they’ll be late for mass; so Dani crouches and reaches past the fluff and lace of her dress to do up her shoes. Mama grants her one concession – as long as she sits properly and doesn’t fidget at her seat, she gets to choose the colour of her tights, which almost makes up for the vinyl shoes that make her feet feel sticky and sweaty. At this vantage point on the floor, she can glance up and see that she’d be directly in La Virgen’s line of sight.

Even now, Dani wonders why La Virgen always looks so sad.

**ii.**

It’s coming up on Luisa’s fiesta de quince años, one of Dani’s best friends. Luisa’s just gotten a final fitting for her gown – sequined, beaded, sleek along the top and voluminous in the skirt. Dani is to be one of Luisa’s damas, which today means her duty is to document everything on her phone. In one of the photos she’s taken, they’re all flexing their arms for the camera in a parody of macho poses. In another, Dani and Marta press their lips to Luisa’s cheeks. Their mouths leave creamy, tinted lip-gloss prints behind, and Luisa dabs them away with a bit of tissue paper while scolding them for messing up her highlighter. She’s laughing, though, and Dani can’t help but smile – her friend is _beautiful_. The sense of inclusion and happiness Dani has is mingled with envy, which is stupid, because when she was a quinceañera the entire point was _not_ spending a ludicrous amount of money on a single day.

Dani’d gotten her wish. Papi wasn’t about to disagree – money was impossibly tight, they were all still grieving for Mama, and their community understood why they might have wanted a smaller affair so soon after a loss. More intimate. Diego had sung a song, live, for her and Papi’s dance; everyone else chipped in to make the feast something special with home-cooked dishes, and if the rest of the night relied on speakers hooked up to a laptop running playlist after playlist, who cared? Dani came of age, like the rest of them, and she’d looked beautiful in a dress that the women of the vecindad put together for her. She’d even convinced herself that the way she’d done things was more modern.

And still. Luisa looks gorgeous. _It might be a sexist tradition in some ways_ , she’d said, _but it’s my day and I’m taking it._ She’ll get the tiara, and the pendant, and will leave her bouquet on the altar for La Virgen.

“It won’t be for long,” Luisa says with a wink, glancing back at the rest of them once they’re all piled into her home. She’s taking her practice makeup off in her mirror, while Dani and Marta lie on the floor; the others have gone home already. “Miguel plans to make that night _extra_ special.”

“ _No.”_ Marta sits up partially, leans back on her elbows; her voice reads scandal, but Dani can see that her face is delighted. “Where? You’ll tell me all the details, right?”

“Absolutely.” Luisa swipes across a high cheekbone with another wipe. “It’s not a sin if we’re getting married, right? I mean, I don’t think it’s a sin, period. It’s just sex. You know he’s planning to propose as soon as we’re done with school? I can’t wait to be a mom…”

“You’re going to use protection, though, right?” Dani braces herself for the inevitable teasing – sometimes her friends joke that she’s overbearing – but Luisa doesn’t do more than roll her eyes with a smile on her face. 

“Of course, Dani. Sarita is going to pick me up some from the college health centre. I’m meeting her in between her classes.”

“So smart,” Marta breathes.

“We have to be. You can’t _imagine_ the reaction if anyone found out. I mean. You can. God.” She whirls to face stare them down, brandishing a makeup wipe with half her face scrubbed clean. Caught between youth, and an artful performance of maturity. “I swear if either of you tell anyone, I’ll kill both of you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me!”

“Or me,” Dani says, markedly less defensive. She stares up at the ceiling. The rest of the conversation is marked by Marta’s complaints about her boyfriend, Santiago, who _is_ practicing, and therefore refuses to have sex until his wedding night. Dani can picture Luisa in the future, helping a girl of her own select fancy dresses, answering her questions about periods with a kind of blunt classiness. Or Marta, nervously repeating the prayers of her own mother before a child’s first date, _may you return healthy, whole, and holy_. Her desire is only tempered by the fear of risks that might come along with its fulfillment. As for Dani… she’s not sure that she’d want to have kids, let alone sex, if she had a choice.

But Dani lacks an explanation for why. Only that the thought of swelling, sweat and pain, indignity and danger… it makes her queasy to imagine. Papi is inordinately smug in some ways that Dani isn’t interested in the trouble that boys bring at this age; to her, it’s laughably easy to stay away. And yet Marta and Luisa _want_ motherhood, along with their men. They associate it with gratuitous love and presence and abundance. Food served hot and nourishing, and the badgering and scolding, and all the prayers and dichos that can be passed down whether they’re true or merely satisfying to repeat. So it’s easier not to say anything. Dani is 15, and doesn’t want to spoil what her friends are so looking forward to. Besides. She still might change her mind, once thinking about her Mama doesn’t hurt so much.

**iii.**

She works at the factory with Diego because her father isn’t able to work, except part-time, and there are bills to pay: household, grocery, medical. Dani _can_ cook, but rarely has time, and she’s happy enough supporting the abuelas and other women at the market. Despite being older, Diego has to be chided and cajoled and hassled into taking any kind of responsibility for himself… and Papi, well, he’s stubborn and cannot be changed at this point in his life, but that doesn’t mean Dani doesn’t try. Headstrong Dani. Bossy Dani. They say it lovingly, and she whacks them on their arms, part playful and part serious. 

On one of the nights when they’re all sharing beers, Papi sighs. “We’re going to miss you, when you go off. Eventually someone’s going to steal our Dani away, and he’s going to be very happy. You’ll run a tight household. Won’t let your children get away with anything.”

Dani takes another swig before answering. “You know I have no time for that. Besides, there are more important things to do.”

Marta moved to America for school after she and Santiago broke up, when he cheated on her in senior year. Luisa tries to set Dani up with friends-of-friends of Miguel’s, always gushing effusively on their virtues in the lead-up, and then vehemently lambasting them whenever Dani has to turn them down for a second date. It’s nice that she’s so supportive of Dani’s lukewarm responses. One of them talks about himself too much. Another is far too timid, seemed frightened through coffee and relieved when she turned him down to meet again. A third ate his food too loudly, smacked his lips, and Dani couldn’t finish her meal. A fourth, though smart, didn’t have enough in common with her. And so on. There’s just never any… chemistry. Whatever spark Dani keeps hearing she will feel upon meeting the right man, she just… never feels. She supposes they’re attractive enough. Marta moans over video calls whenever she sees photos of them, her voice crackling over the line, “ _well if you’re not having any luck, send_ any _of them to me…_ ”

So maybe there’s something here that Dani’s missing. Either way, her lack of a dating life means she can take on overtime. And emotionally, tending to her family is enough.

**iv.**

A devil who can steal faces and will not die: that’s what’s chasing her now, Dani thinks. Not chasing. Hunting. As the train heads further north, she hands a container of food to Grace. Watching Grace shovel yellow rice and refried beans into her mouth, Dani is reminded that this woman claims to come from a future of scarcity; seeing the way she eats is troubling. 

For one, if they are to continue on this mission, or whatever Grace is calling it, they’re going to need food and supplies. All of Dani’s cash is gone now, after her purchases at the train stop, and she has no way to acquire more. For another… Grace’s behaviour reinforces all of her claims. Tending to this fierce, needful woman is just a distraction, Dani knows; but that distraction is all that’s keeping her from collapsing entirely. 

Surely, at any minute, either Grace or Sarah will take it all back. Tell her that there’s been a mistake, and she’s not the one this… Terminator _thing_ is after. The longer that things go on without something of that nature happening, the closer Dani gets to admitting that this is real. Like receiving prophecy. Not even the story Grace tells her about how the world will end over the span of three days is quite enough. No matter how vivid the details. 

So claiming that she’s nothing, she’s nobody -- that’s Dani’s last attempt to resist this narrative.

“ _You’re_ not the threat,” Sarah says dismissively. “It’s your _womb_.”

When said with such confidence, such finality, Dani can’t disbelieve the older woman, and misses the last bit of the exchange between Grace and Sarah before Grace stalks off to the rear of the train car. She’s dizzy with dread, suddenly – feeling flushed through with cold, and it’s not from the wind rushing by.

Will she? After all these years? She’s grown comfortable not having to think about this or justify herself. Papi had just come around, accepting the likelihood that his hopes of being a grandfather rested with Diego. Her mouth feels hot with saliva as though she’s about to throw up. Sarah’s no fucking San Gabriel Arcángel, but maybe the effect of her proclamation is the same as what La Virgen would have felt. The other woman hadn’t even noticed Dani’s unresponsiveness. Too busy lighting up a cigarette and brooding.

 _I won’t,_ Dani thinks wildly to herself. _No. I refuse._

Even if it means the end of the world?

Grace keeps saying it all hinges on her.

She wonders how long María struggled with denial. If it was right up until her body betrayed her, proving what was spoken to be true. Dani wonders how long it will take her to break. 

**v.**

The Rev-9 fails in its mission, and Grace succeeds in hers. Dani’s no stranger to stories about sacrifice, or dying so another may live – and yet she finds in the aftermath that she cannot get Carl out of her mind. From what she saw of his remains, there would be no resurrection.

With the most pressing threat resolved for now, Dani visits a women’s clinic in Austin for a tubal ligation.

Neither of them challenged her, when she told them what she wanted: the confidence she’d never have a child. What a relief, when Grace just nodded, started walking through the logistics, the supplies they’d need to carry her through the few days when she’d have to take things easy. Not for the first time, she’s struck by how drawn she is to Grace’s way of being. How comfortable Grace seemed to be, existing outside the bounds of the tradition Dani’d grown up believing was immutable. And if she’d expected Sarah to protest, given her history, Dani was surprised when she didn’t. Then guilty at having felt surprise.

“Might be a smart idea,” Sarah’d said. None of them needed to elaborate. Too many reasons why. All of her prepared arguments about specific fears, not being able to afford distractions, the physical risk, the dangers of an impending apocalypse… those all got to die unspoken. Maybe Sarah’s acquiescence is what counts as her apology for what happened on the train. If so, Dani’s willing to accept it. 

Laparoscopic surgery – something quick, with a short recovery time. Sarah pulls some strings with local contacts to make it happen. Dani’s age was handwaved; no questions, no lingering at the clinic for monitoring afterwards. Running with Sarah Connor lends certain advantages – and she multitasks, asks the same contact to forge a prescription notice and top-up their med supply for Grace. An envelope passed under a counter, fat with cash, and it’s done. After a week Dani needs a check-up to confirm a lack of infection, and that’ll be it. Then they’ll be on the road again.

Those first few nights after the procedure, Dani is sore, aching, tender in her belly. Despite the physical discomfort, she is also _free_.

When Dani sleeps at all, it’s fitfully, with the shiver of her body enclosed by Grace. She’s curled and present at Dani’s back, monitoring with ease her vitals and temperature. Sarah, rolled in a sleeping bag on the ground next to the bed, set Dani up before retiring for the night with painkillers or water set on the bedside table.

Staring up at the ceiling on the third night of this, at an indeterminable time when the shadows were dusky blue-grey through the room, Dani has a lot of space to think to herself. Two women close by her, their breathing asynchronous. The points of contact Grace makes with her body are impossible to ignore. Dani on her back, Grace’s hand light upon her breastbone and forearm supporting her neck. A leg slung gently over hers. Dani watches as bright orange light is overlaid with the halogen-silver glare through the gap at the top of the blinds, as a car turns into a parking spot outside. Tires crunching on gravel. Sarah clearing her throat in her sleep. A ka-thunk as a door closes, far away from their room.

Dani lets herself consider the possibility that she might not be straight.

**vi.**

If Dani’s life before had been informed by an absence of interest, then after all that’s happened it’s impossible to ignore what she assumes _must_ be attraction.

Surely, she’d thought, the way she felt was distorted by what they’d all been through. For days Grace had been picking her up, shielding her, holding her back from danger, subduing her when necessary. Grace’s body was a comfort and safeguard all at once – and Dani has always been the affectionate one, so the level of contact hadn’t been an issue. It made sense. Moored her. She’d needed solace and security. Grace provided both. Anyone would have reacted the same way Dani had in those situations – with gratitude and reciprocity. So for all her appreciation, she expected the intensity of her emotions towards Grace to become subdued… _después de la tempestad viene la calma._ Right?

Except those feelings haven’t gone away, since they made it out. Survived the final showdown at the substation, all of them working in unison until Carl and Grace managed to fry the Rev-9 with high-voltage contacts, Carl giving his life to protect the other three. Fixed in her mind is the impossible white glow of electricity arcing, the way Grace snarled and strained with the light reflecting in her eyes bright as any star; that, and the terror which had ripped through her, as Grace was pitched through the air by the force of the explosion that followed. _Not her, not her,_ with frantic prayers tumbling from her mouth, the words slurring together in her urgency as Dani stumbled towards Grace’s inert body – and the feeling that her heart restarted, as Grace jerked awake on the ground with a breath. Still alive. Hurt, badly, but not broken. They finished the job, blowing the rest of the substation up and likely knocking out power to a nearby city, destroying all evidence of what transpired. Limping, leaving it all behind.

All but the trust between them. Trust inherent to Grace letting Dani sponge her down, until the washcloths she’d used were filthy with blood, grime, and other fluids more directly related to the augments. In tending to Grace, Dani sees every scar – the ones she’d noticed, the ones she hadn’t. Daubing at the quick-healing wounds over days, keeping them clean, Dani ignores how flustered she gets, seeing Grace in nothing but her underwear. The other woman is composed and doesn’t seem to notice – which is a blessing.

Dani’s seen what Grace is capable of – speed and strength and brutality. In the absence of immediate threat, she’s gotten to observe what Grace is like at rest too; how controlled she is, and the way her entire body hums at all times with potential energy. Over the days, Grace began to exercise, at first with grimaces of pain written across her face and beads of sweat on her brow, but then with more ease. During the crisis and desperate flight from the Rev-9, Dani had only noted Grace’s body for its proximity to her own; the feverish need to have her close. Now, she watches because she cannot look away. 

Calmly, Grace had told Sarah and Dani what kinds of support she’d need – electrolyte beverages, diazepam for muscle spasms, gabapentin for chronic nerve pain, whatever NSAID they could get their hands on cheaply and in large quantities. The crash drugs could wait until later, she’d said, although she’d need those too. Just in case. The rote quality to the listing made Dani wonder if her future self commanded that Grace repeat these requirements for her bodily maintenance, until they were permanently memorized. Each night Dani watches as Grace dutifully administers her dosage; sometimes, Grace catches her eye as she does so, smiles. Each time Grace looks at her, with tenderness and gratitude, Dani feels a leaping sensation in her chest.

Which obviously, is a problem. She tries to shame herself into behaving – from what Grace has told her, there are a number of reasons why everything she’s feeling right now is wrong. An attraction to women, fine, that’s neither disordered nor sinful – she hasn’t believed the same way since her mother passed, and Dani’s never believed all the bullshit about homosexuality.

But some version of her saved Grace, and _raised_ her, Grace had said – there is an image of Dani in Grace’s mind that Dani’s positive she’ll never be able to live up to. One that must be preserved, kept sanctified. A commander would have to be worthy of authority and respect others granted her. They would… _Grace_ would need to know that Dani was a safe person, an honourable person.

What might it do if she reveals _these_ feelings?

What if Grace finds them unforgiveable?

She keeps imagining Grace’s rejection, revulsion written on her face, and the thought turns her stomach. Like when Marta still lived in Mexico; said unkind things about their friend Serena, who had been seen near downtown kissing another woman. Marta, with her nose wrinkled up and reciting familiar talking points as though they were impartial truth instead of hateful prejudice. And Dani had been appalled, chewed Marta out extensively on the matter, _cada quien es como Dios lo hizo!,_ and Marta grudgingly apologized and left it well enough alone. Because she’d trusted Dani. Known how Dani was brought up, and that they attended the same church, and obviously Dani was speaking from an unbiased place. Was therefore irreproachable, and even Dani had read her own vehemence as protecting someone she cared about. 

What’s worse is she can’t claim this has never happened before – an unexpected thrill, the delight of a new connection with some young woman making tortillas on a press, Dani entranced by the rapid motions of her arms and hands flinging the rounds onto a griddle. Or the banter, somehow intoxicating, between other women at the plant – the oil and grease smudged on their coveralls, the way they wiped sweat off their brow and spoke with bravada and slapped their leather gloves against their hips before going on coffee break. Or the comfort between Dani and her friends, which she’d always assumed was just the natural way that friends were with each other.

Wanting _actively_ , with awareness of it, that’s new. Or thinking that she might want something, however ill-defined, from Grace. She’s awake, all of a sudden, and desperately wishes that wasn’t the case. If this hadn’t happened before, she thinks furiously, it would be easier to cope with! But all of a sudden, here it is – the re-evaluation of every encounter she’s had, in her old life. Unbidden she thinks of pressing her mouth, lip-glossed and laughing, to Luisa’s cheek when Luisa was a quinceañera. Should she feel guilty? Has she betrayed anyone unknowingly, by looking at them this way, even unintentionally?

God, is she betraying Grace’s trust right now?

 _Shouldn’t_ becomes a regular part of Dani’s inner conversation.

For the first time she can recall, physical affection becomes loaded in a way it never was before. It’s nearly unbearable to withdraw, but more than that, it would be excruciating to continue as if everything was fine, knowing what she does. There is no innocence to the way she feels when in Grace’s arms. She wants to stay, and so she can’t.

For all her life Dani’s never known what she found attractive. And now, looking at Grace, she realizes. It’s _her._

**vii.**

Traversing through Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia on the way into Virginia is a tense enough affair that Dani’s able to mask her self-imposed boundaries behind some very real anxiety. Other than courteous ministrations when Grace needs help with changing her bandages, or cleaning off, Dani keeps a measured distance – walks ahead with Sarah instead of in step with Grace. Or goes to bed early, claiming exhaustion from long days spent trying not to be seen by anyone who might have racial prejudice… or regular hostility. This is, after all, America.

None of them can afford to be seen, if at all possible. Not while they put as much distance between themselves and the southern border as they can. Somehow, incredibly, Sarah has safe-houses here and there for the first bit in Texas. Old friends or contacts who will take her in, happy for the first encounter with her, sometimes, in decades. In between those, hitchhiking is ruled too dangerous, and stolen vehicles can only be driven until they run out of gas. Out of habit, they avoid all forms of surveillance – Dani thanks Sarah for her mentorship, every time that she helps prevent a opsec mishap, and gradually Sarah shows some warmth in response instead of just curt commentary. Still, she keeps them moving every couple of days. Cheap junk food from rest stops becomes a staple, and Dani learns more about foraging and hunting than she’s ever thought she would from observation alone.

Eventually, they have to ditch the idea of driving the whole way. Get spooked by some state trooper just outside of Atlanta who they thought was about to pull them over. He’d been after the car in front of them, but still; no license, no registration, not a single piece of legal ID among the three of them. They’re lucky a bulletin hadn’t gone out about the plates they were driving with, and Sarah says so. 

They take the risk of getting to Johnson City in Tennessee before ditching their ride at a trailhead, but then back off the grid they go. Pretending to be hikers on the Appalachian trail is as good an alibi as any. People will be used to seeing others roughing it. It’s quiet. Isolated. A bored teen with a subtle, faded rainbow flag tattooed on their inner wrist gives them some maps, scans them up and down. They grin, pass along some tips on a friendly place to pick up supplies in the nearby town before starting. The rest of their gear Sarah steals from a trail shelter on their first night. Dani insists on taking the backcountry pass too, even though Grace indicates that she’ll just knock out any park staff they run into if it looks like they’d cause a problem. 

Dani holds her body rigid, in every place that they sleep, pretending not to notice when Grace comes to check on her. Ceases to tug Grace down to rest with her, or curl up together on a bedroll. Eventually it gets to a point where Grace, picking up on her cues, gives Dani her space at night. If she’s hurt or disappointed, Dani doesn’t find out. 

The first time Dani drops a quail, Grace sweeps her up into a one-armed hug of celebration. As an exhilarated indulgence, Dani lets herself be crushed to the other woman. The contact, the closeness, it sings through her body and she realizes just how touch-starved she’s become since they started north. The home- and heart-sickness retreats, a little, as Grace squeezes her gently and then lets her go, heading to retrieve the bird. But otherwise, Dani starts to flinch back whenever Grace touches her – can’t hide all of her newfound skittishness after all. The minute reactions hit her, whether Grace is adjusting her aim with a gun or helping to hotwire a car they’re jacking. She begins to see hesitation whenever the woman reaches for her or steps in close.

A fog-soft dawn is just breaking, when Grace finally confronts her. Dani is sitting on a log, despite the dampness soaking through her seat from a recent rain, and feeling appropriately miserable. She hasn’t been sleeping well – keeps dreaming a pair of arms around her, and when she wakes up cold and tucked into the far corner of their stolen tent… well, reality seems monstrously unfair. She is thinking about what some allege to be the sanctifying nature of suffering, trying to scrape some comfort from that. It’s not working.

In the calm and the quiet with Sarah still sleeping nearby – she can hear the gentle rasping of Sarah snoring – Grace approaches.

“Hey,” Grace says, tense and standing straight as a piece of rebar. “Can… can I talk to you?” 

She smells of wood-smoke. When Dani had gotten up to slip out of view for some privacy, she’d seen Grace by their pit, cursing out the smouldering damp firewood that was refusing to light. She must have been sitting out here longer than she thought, because Grace has obviously succeeded in the interim – holds two steaming camp mugs.

Clearly, this is going to be the conversation she’s been dreading. An obvious answer is to keep pretending nothing’s wrong, or to deflect, but Grace is perceptive... “Of course,” she says, shifting down a bit and feeling adrenaline flood her system.

Grace hands her the tea, holds her own mug in both hands – abruptly, she sits, her body angling towards Dani’s and one leg jittering nervously in place.

“Are you avoiding me?”

“…A little,” Dani confesses. Easier to start with the truth, and then conceal the motivation. Except then, Dani glances over at Grace and sees stunned hurt written across the woman’s face, and it makes the next words she was about to say wither in her mouth.

“Why?”

 _All of this has been too much_ , she was going to say. Or _it’s just the stress_ , or any other host of excuses that she’s rehearsed and half-convinced herself of in the past few weeks. But she realizes, in this moment, that Grace is devastated by the confirmation Dani’s just given her, and it rears up: the knowledge that whatever she says here could permanently, irrevocably break whatever is between them.

Whomever Dani was to Grace in the future is someone Grace clearly idolizes, was willing to go back in time for, to fight and kill and _die_ for her. And she’s been stupidly, callously rejecting Grace’s care and affection without any explanation for weeks. All because she can’t own her feelings, disclose them, laugh them off or fight about them and either way get an understanding solidified between them that Dani means no harm. Nothing she’s prepared to say makes any sense, not with Grace’s voice cracking and her blue eyes staring right into Dani’s and showing a kind of desperate heartbreak.

Snapping her gaze away, she drinks her tea – it nearly scalds her mouth, which is so dry.

“Because I…” She’s livid with herself, and something inside her catches, sears up in her throat and she’s so _tired_ of lying about this by saying nothing. “Because I don’t want to hurt you, and I know that I have by doing this but I couldn’t think of a better option, and I’m so _sorry_ that I have. But it’s better for me to stay away.”

Her hands have clenched around the mug so hard it’s shaking, and now the distress in Grace’s countenance is replaced by confusion. Grace reaches out a hand, places it on Dani’s knee, and she _hates_ herself for it, but even now she feels a spark. 

“How could you hurt me?”

“There’s something wrong with me.”

“Dani, I can promise you that nothing is – however you’re feeling… I’ve seen, or I’ve _been_ through. The last couple weeks would have broken most people. So please, just… talk to me? Whatever it is, we can…”

“No!” Dani cuts her off, short and sharp and definitive. “Grace, no.” She jerks herself away. She can’t look at Grace, not while she says, “I’ll understand if this ruins everything. But I haven’t wanted you touching me because I _–_ I think I want you, or that I have feelings for you, or that I _–_ ”

There’s a sound, and she looks back over to see Grace gaping at her, and the mug fallen from her fingers onto the ground. Silence stretches between them, and dread settles cold and empty into Dani’s chest.

“Oh thank God,” Grace utters, before she melts and covers her face with both hands.

“I… what?”

Laughing weakly, Grace rubs her hands down her face. “I’m so _relieved._ I thought I’d done something wrong! I’ve been trying to figure out what it was for days – I even asked Sarah, but she was no help. Asked me if I wanted an itemized list, before telling me to suck it up and talk to you.”

“But… you’re not mad?”

“Why would I be _mad_?”

“Didn’t you say that I raised you?!” And there it is – what’s made her feel sick for weeks. Dani whispers through numb lips, “if that’s true, what am…”

“No!” Dani’s forgotten how rapidly Grace can move – she’s seized up, bound tightly in Grace’s arms, able to feel her heartbeat and the impossible warmth of her. Dani doesn’t realize how cold she’s been, until Grace is crushed up against her, holding her at an awkward angle. For a moment there’s nothing but the embrace, until Grace backs up and holds Dani’s shoulders, continues urgently. “Dani, no, that’s… _fuck_ , that’s not what I meant. You saved me, but the _Resistance_ raised me. You set up a… a school, a foster parent system, collective childcare. You kept a distance. I was in my twenties before _–_ ”

And here she catches herself.

“Forget it. Shit.”

Cracks, the kind that let the light in, through her misunderstanding of the situation. Hardly daring to breathe, Dani asks hesitantly. “So… when you said, _I know you_..?”

Grace flushes. Bashful, scuffing a hand through her hair and leaning back, she says, “Uh. Yeah.” When Dani can’t respond, she hurries to continue. “We never put a name to anything, but I… we… the word ‘love’ got used a lot. Not that it has to! You’re a different person. Or, the same person, but earlier? We talked about that, what sending me back might mean, so I didn’t think I’d survive at all and have no expectations _–_ ”

“Grace?”

She shuts up. “Yeah?”

Astonishing, how quickly her anxiety turned to something hopeful and impossibly fragile within her. Scooped out and clean and desperately, quietly brave for just this second; and Dani isn’t sure if it’ll last. So… _No tengas miedo._ “Can I kiss you?”

For several agonizing seconds, Grace says nothing. Doesn’t shift, or budge; frozen, body angled towards Dani’s, sitting statuesque. Dani remembers a time when she got heat stroke – that same clammy, buzzing staticky sensation is mounting all through her now, only her heart is in her throat and she feels like she could scream. She’s about to stammer a _never mind_ , when Grace responds by leaning in.

Her hand is on Dani’s cheek, and she’s warm and her fingers are calloused, and as though she’s done it a million times – maybe she has – Grace kisses her, their mouths meeting soft and impossibly tender. Dani hears herself make a tiny sound back in her throat, almost one of relief, and Grace responds in kind; when they finally draw their faces back for a breath, Dani’s trembling. Grace runs a thumb along her lower lip, those bare inches between them electric.

“I have no idea how to do this,” Dani whispers.

“Nothing you’re not ready for,” Grace says with infinite kindness, touching her forehead to Dani’s.

“Okay.”

“And you decide what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want.” Too many options. So many things that _sound_ good, but she’s not sure if they will be considering she’s never done them; or things that might only be good in theory rather than practice. But then… Dani feels a shy smile creep onto her face. “You might have some ideas though, right?”

“I, uh.” Dani can see the flush spread from Grace’s neck and face through to her ears. “I have a few, yeah. But I want you to discover those. In your own time. That doesn’t need to be something we worry about, right now.”

“Okay.” There’s so much she wants to say, as the sun finally rises golden and bright above the last shreds of clouds from last night’s storm, but she wants to talk later. Now all she feels is _happiness_. “Can I kiss you again?” 

Haloed by the dawn, Grace’s smile breaks across her face gloriously. Her _yes_ as soft as deliverance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation notes:  
> “ _Cada quien es como Dios lo hizo_ ” – I believe translates to “everyone is how God made them” but please correct me if the translation isn’t accurate!  
> “ _Después de la tempestad viene la calma_ ” – this one was easier, and means “after the storm comes the calm”.
> 
> I referenced the Wikipedia article on Mexican traditions surrounding a quinceañera, as well as the very thorough analysis on the Mexican elements of the film [written here on Tumblr ](https://winbutlerscowbell.tumblr.com/post/190765436804/terminator-dark-fate-analysis-mexico-edition). Also, the Appalachian Trail website.


	2. Grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In the dead of that same night, when Dani asks her what happens when everything falls apart, Grace tells her honestly. About the blackouts, the bombs, and the starvation. About someone saving her. Can’t stop herself from glancing over, at that, but neither Dani nor Sarah seems to catch the moment._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter 2** : A Gender Situation (identity left unspecified, but Grace deals with dysphoria). How Gender affects Grace during sex; a martyr complex and implied anxiety; some unhealthy coping through pushing herself too hard physically; and someone getting beat up by Grace because he makes an implied comment about sexual violence.

_Did I say you could look at my private parts?_

* * *

**i.**

A couple days after that Dani lady brought her to the complex, Grace tried to escape. It was easy – she hadn’t hit her growth spurt yet, one brought on by access to proper meals – and so her narrow frame wriggled between two adults and sprinted down the hallway before anyone could lay a hand on her. Someone caught her like a tripwire, and Grace kicked and bit them and screamed so loudly that she hurt her throat. Not even Dani’s appearance had been enough to calm her down, even though she no longer remembers what the inciting _thing_ was that made her need to _getoutgetoutgetout_.

Only that they hadn’t punished her for it. Dani’d sat her down and talked with her and listened to her sob and rage against them until her voice didn’t come out right – too quiet, and everything in her feeling swollen and tight with anger and fear. And then Dani asked if she could give Grace a hug. Grace almost said no just for spite, but she hadn’t had one of those in a while, and it was… nice. 

Anyways, that was the start of Grace thinking that staying wasn’t a terrible idea, since they were tougher than she was, and there were too many of them for her to get away from (until she was stronger, at least), and also they had food. Reliably. Which was a big thing. Dani even made the people who she’d saved Grace from apologize to her, and even though Grace didn’t say a word in response or even look at them, really, Dani seemed satisfied. Told Grace she could talk about what had happened if she wanted, with some other adults who were trained to listen to that sort of stuff in their old lives.

She still doesn’t. Not even after months of being here. Sometimes that comes back to haunt her. She gets nightmares – hears her mom and brother shrieking in her head. Feels Matthew’s hand torn from her grasp. None of the rescued kids in the dorm rooms tend to be quiet about whatever ghosts live in their heads; but no matter who it is that wakes up screaming, there’s _always_ a monitor who sleeps in a nearby room, can check on them. Way better than having to deal with it alone, though Grace gets the sense very rapidly that some of the kids here have been through even worse stuff than her. Hardly any of them want to talk about things either, but Grace can pick things up from _what_ they’re saying in their sleep.

But the thing is, Grace doesn’t feel like sharing. The less she says, the better – people always get that _Look_ on their face when they hear her voice come out of her mouth, like it didn’t sound the way they expected it to. Which is fine. Whatever.

Could be dangerous to draw too much attention to herself, after all. Especially since she doesn’t plan on sticking around.

**ii.**

Except there’s the school. And the books and things that a lady gave Grace access to whenever she wanted – she had red hair gone all frizzy and dry skin but really nice green eyes, and said in a low gravelly tone to “call me Val”.

Grace enjoys the feeling of her body getting stronger, but she can feel her mind coming back to her too. When not pushed by a stomach so empty it hurts to _do something fight run fight run eat what you can and keep moving_ , it turns out that Grace likes learning. It’s not like the old school crap was, with sitting in desks and doing one boring thing at a time for an hour. This time she gets to decide how long to work on something. They’re teaching about things like biochemistry, and growing plants without sunlight; about ways to sew people back up when they get hurt, and radios, and speaking in Morse code or sign language, and how to generate power in a way that’s not easy to detect by satellite. The point isn’t to get grades, but just to do the best she can, to ask about stuff she doesn’t get or see the point of, and to redo tests as often as she wants until she can get it right. Which is kind of a game.

Stories are okay too. Grace likes to lose herself for hours at a time reading or writing or whatever. And she’s brilliant at it, and as a reward takes a day now and then to just go to the big empty part of this complex that kids and teens like her are allowed to play in. She keeps running, laps and laps while she’s in there, but now she can do it for longer and longer times. Starts copying the adults she sees around at a distance – the ones who do push-ups and crunches and get into weird formations over and over while someone yells how quickly they’re doing it from across the room. Grace gets a reputation for being quiet and smart, if scrappy; she likes it. Means she’s good at watching, and listening, and keeping track of things that are great about this place and the stuff that sucks as much as she thought it would. Gets to be that the first list outgrows the second by a pretty big margin.

So now she’s here, thinking she might want to stay for a bit. She’s blinking at her face in the slightly cracked and tarnish-crazed mirror of the dorm hall – it’s starting to look different to her. The eyes not quite so bright set-back in her head, for one. And her jaw is softer, and so are other parts of her – she’s put on a ton of muscle, sure, but Grace is noticing emergent curves now that she has a way to notice them, and it makes her frown. For some reason it bugs her. Plus: on the outside, it was around… 40 to 50 days or so that she could go before needing to hack off her hair some more and keep it off her neck. Can’t stand the feeling of it there, with or without a hood up. Judging from her reflection and the constant prickly sense of irritation against the uppermost part of her spine, it’s been longer than that.

Grace dons the ratty sneakers that they gave her – ones that fit properly on her growing feet, though they might not in a couple of weeks – and marches down the hallway until she finds the red-haired lady Val’s office. Without knocking, Grace enters; and Val looks up from a stack of paperwork.

“I think I need a haircut,” Grace declares.

There’s only one barber in the facility, and Grace hasn’t wanted to go near him – some fluttering nervous energy in her stomach, because what if he makes fun of her or refuses? But Val says she knows how to use a pair of scissors, and gets Grace to give her hair a wash with some bottled water and a bar of soap first. Looks around all shifty and makes Grace promise she won’t tell about the water thing, because no one’s supposed to waste it. But this isn’t a waste, right? Right, Grace agrees. Still, Val lets Grace have privacy and Grace had almost forgotten the slippery feeling of suds on her fingers, and that’s a luxury that she files away.

“How’d you learn to do this?” Grace asks as strands of still-damp hair fall onto her towel-covered lap. Val chuckles above her.

“Used to have a lot of friends of mine who wanted me to do this for them. I’d trade them, haircuts for other things; one of my friends made homemade bread and would bring me loaves as an exchange. Another would barter me stories, and I liked the company. There we go. Good as new.”

There’s a lightness in her scalp and Val shows Grace what she looks like with her cropped short hair.

“I don’t have any stories I wanna tell you,” Grace says, and Val just smiles.

“Good enough to hear you talking period, kiddo. Lemme know when you need another.”

Grace gets some stares from other kids who return to the dorm, later. One of them, a pretty girl with long black hair and nails that she bites down to the quick and a whispery voice comes and stands at the foot of Grace’s bed.

“Why do you wanna look like a boy?” She asks, and Grace stiffens. It takes a second before she realizes what she’s feeling is anger.

“Who cares if I did?” Grace says with a defiant tilt to her chin and a shrug. “I don’t _wanna_ look like anything. I look like _me_.”

They stare each other down for a second before the girl sits on the edge of Grace’s bed, fingers picking at the sheets.

“Cool,” she says finally. “I’m Tristan. Can you cut mine?” 

**iii.**

This is her body, of which her anatomy is the most and least of her concerns.

The apocalypse collapses her into a kid, then into a soldier, and in certain moments she has the clarity to be glad of that.

It saves her trouble; she is _Grace_. The world doesn’t care; questions about why she can’t or doesn’t like most ‘girl things’ are suddenly rare. Her frame is androgynous, and strong, and she can out-shoot a lot of the men in her division. Her height might not be an advantage – makes her an easier target in some ways – but at least it means she can outrun a fuckton of people, too. Whether people think of her as a woman is secondary to the fact that she’s alive and can fuck up some machines. Suits her just fine, and she can lean back on that argument if someone starts giving her a hard time.

Sometimes the enormity of what has occurred is a crushing gravitational field within her, a vacuum that sucks in all light and renders her immobile. Other times she’s live-wire shocked, unable to stop moving. The electric need to _do_ jittering underneath her skin, until or unless she can work her muscles into submission. Plenty of interesting ways to do that.

Exercise, drills, martial training – those are some. Far back and away Grace remembers bright sun and turf fields, grass stains on her knees and socks sliding down her calves. Sports were an attempt to help keep her focused. The promise and potential of lunch-hour sports or after-school tournaments was something that rewarded the efforts she made in class, when she bothered to make them. Entertainment is far and between here, but the unit commanders insist on some recreational time – what the soldiers do with that is up to them. So usually, Grace slips back into running, or climbing, or sparring until the sweat sticks her clothing to her back. Makes her vision and thoughts seem bright and clear, as pure as the circuit of air in and out of her lungs.

Sex is another outlet. It turns out there are plenty of other women interested in the same things Grace is. Rivalrous one-night stands initiated in the change rooms, watching each other strip down to nakedness and liking what the other saw. Power and soreness, the raw vulnerability of flesh, worshipful appreciation of scars – _we’re here_ , the encounters seemed to say, _we exist_ , and Grace likes to be wanted. Because of, not in spite of. The noise and sweat and messy pleasure of it all, because they aren’t just made to fight and bleed and feel pain.

Doesn’t mean it’s always a comfortable affair. Every unit had to sit through the briefing on safer sex in the apocalypse “ _because the medical bay has enough to deal with”_. And although Grace is happy to use whatever terms her partner of the week or month enjoys, she learns early to set ground rules about what they can call her or say to her. Action words are helpful. So are verbs, but it depends on what nouns they’re attached to. _Inside you_ , for instance, is fine; equally inoffensive are to-the-point statements about _eating you out_ or _riding_ or whatever the activity may be. But as soon as Grace feels like an anatomical specimen, she’s out. It shuts her right down. The people who know her best soon learn to be vague, or at least to check in before launching into the dirty talk to see how she’s feeling in her body today.

Different matter when she’s fucking someone else; then, any language tends to be fine. Kelly, another soldier in Grace’s unit and a friend who’s on the level, loves attention called to her, with as specific of words as possible. One night on the comedown while stripping off and disposing of a latex glove, Grace asks with a sort of blunt, fond curiosity why Kelly likes that kind of thing so much. 

“It’s the reminder,” Kelly laughs, stretching, wiggling back into her underwear. She has hair bound in cornrows that she ties up at night in a salvaged satin scarf, uses car paint to colour her nails because there’s no such thing as enamel polish anymore. The kind of woman who steals pinches of salt from the mess hall, to mix into a paste with water and scrub her lips with. DIY exfoliant, which means she’s extra-soft and kissable. Delights in these as her treat-yourself moment. Kelly’ll be _damned if I ain’t gonna look good when I go out_ , she says with a pointed grin on her face. 

“I like the reminder,” Kelly repeats, softer, gesturing Grace to give over a hand so that Kelly can trace the tendons and veins of her inner wrist, walk fingers along the lines on Grace’s palm. “Everything’s ugly now. Makes me look even finer, but that doesn’t mean… I don’t want to hear so? That it’s good to be like this, still.”

“Meaning gorgeous?” Grace tries, and gets a squeeze to her hand in response.

“Meaning this kind of woman. Sometimes all this feels like a… a waste. It’s hard finding someone who’ll appreciate the softer parts of me, these times. Want all of me in the way that I want them to. Talk about it like I need them to.”

“Hm.” Another gentle squeeze, and Kelly shifting so that she’s facing Grace more fully.

“I get the feeling you want the opposite?” she prompts quietly, eyes searching, and Grace shrugs, not really wanting the same question turned back on her.

“My body’s often less interesting to me than what I can do with it,” she concedes, hoping that’ll suffice as an explanation. It’s not the entirety of her opinion on the matter, but that’s not something she wants to think too long on. Not when she’s still riding the high of getting Kelly off as well as she just has.

“And oh, the things you can do with it,” Kelly returns with a wink. “You down for another round?”

“We deploy in the morning, right?” Grace cranes her neck over her shoulder to look at the bedside clock, the glowing letters imprinted on the dark, grateful that Kelly has let her off so readily. “Still got a few hours left before then.”

“Take that as a yes,” Kelly says, pushing back on Grace’s shoulders so she’s flush on the bed, slinging her legs over Grace’s hips and leaning down. “Head to the shower and I’ll take care of _you_ for a change.”

**iv.**

“Corporal Harper, you’re under remand until a superior officer arrives.” Having dead-panned the official statement, the head of medical rushes past her and into the adjacent room. 

A persistent throb in her grazed knuckles. That’s what Grace directs her attention towards. She can ignore the sting of her split lip and the metallic tang in her mouth, when she focuses on the inflamed feeling through her hands. There’s talk of X-rays, which she takes a perverse sort of pride in. It’d be an honour to have cracked her bones on that asshole’s face. Good thing this bench is made of vinyl – they’ll be able to wipe it down afterwards. Gonna want to – she’s not bleeding much, but still.

“The Commander’s on her way in,” says Cass, the medic bandaging Grace’s wounds. She shoots Grace a look of reproach. “Jesus, Harper, did you have to do that to the guy? He needs stitches.”

“Good,” Grace says, spitting a bit of blood into the cloth they gave her for the purpose. Cass makes a noise of irritation and moves away, letting the door slam behind her. All the same, Grace slumps back to rest against the wall behind her as soon as there’s no one around directly observing her. Feels her fingers and mouth throbbing in unison, not to mention a tension headache starting up from how tight she’s been clenching her jaw.

Diaz is going to chew her out – might even take her off the next Retrieval team mission. That’d be worse than just confinement to her quarters, which is almost certainly going to be part of whatever punishment they mete out to her for this. The one thing they can’t do, Grace thinks resolutely, is make her apologize.

Breaking her calculation, the door swings open with the creak of metal hinges.

“Before you say anything,” Grace says sharply in the direction of the ceiling, “I beat the shit out of him because—”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” she hears in Spanish, which is not the reaction she was anticipating.

Not the voice she was expecting either.

With a sudden pang of cold dread that shoots through her aching core, Grace looks up to see…

“Commander Ramos,” she forces out. Despite a twinge of pain, Grace scrambles to her feet and snaps to attention. Still the only proper reaction to the head of Tactics and founder of the Resistance; she winces as her shoulders pull with the hasty salute she gives. “Sir. I… where’s Commander Diaz?”

“…I handle all incidents that involve me as a factor personally,” Dani says, her look of shock reassembling itself into a cool, steely expression. She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “I’m here to collect the facts from relevant parties.”

Grace lets her hand drift down to her side; when she flexes her fingers, almost making a fist again, there’s a raw acidic feeling that sizzles up her tendons. She begins, “Bradwaithe insulted you. Sir. There were slurs involved, and he said if the Resistance had a proper military structure we’d be twice as effective. At the end of the day what he said was that any organization run without a hierarchy was doomed—”

“Whatever criticisms Peter Bradwaithe has about our leadership structure is likely something I’ve heard before,” Dani cuts her off, “and that still doesn’t explain why you _broke his nose_.”

“Hope I did more than that,” Grace mutters to herself, feeling a familiar rise of frustration and flopping down once more to the bench – she doesn’t understand why she’s being put on the defensive for this before she’s had a chance to explain. And the disappointed look on Dani’s face is _horrible_ – Grace has never been rebuked by her before. Only commended, in the aftermath of every drill and Tactics session or mission debrief. This is new. But he _deserved_ it. The worst of it is still a hot coal in her stomach, something searing and repugnant, but she’s afraid motherfucking Peter is going to spin this, somehow, minimize and deflect in his own retelling of events and then laugh about it later with his buddies, but—

“You might have. Scalp wounds bleed a lot so it’s hard right now to get a sense of the damage.” Grace hears Dani take a step closer. “He’s still _dazed_ , Grace. This is serious.”

If nothing else would have worked, the sound of her name coming out of Dani’s mouth does the trick. Grace stops glaring at the gleaming tiled floor of the medical bay, and wrenches her gaze upwards towards Dani.

“I don’t want to repeat it. What he said about you. What he said he would do to you, _how_ he said he’d put you in your place if he could. He was graphic.”

A beat before Dani visibly slackens, unfolding her arms from across her chest as an ounce of sternness drops away. “You don’t have to – not to me, at any rate. But…” And a note of urgency enters her tone, “Grace, you don’t need to defend me, no matter what anyone says. I’ve created mechanisms, dealt with this before, and worse. Fighting with any member needs to be a last resort, and preferably something that I do to make a point. Otherwise it undermines what we’re trying to build…”

“Yeah, well,” Grace shrugs, feeling doused and hurt, every smarting inch of her suddenly harder to ignore. “Couldn’t stand hearing him talk about you that way.”

A miserable stretch of time before there’s any kind of reaction. Dani approaching, crouching to eye-level, changes that. She braces one hand on her knee for balance, reaches out with the other to brush some of Grace’s hair out of the way; Grace forgets to breathe momentarily, as Dani examines the bruises rising up along Grace’s brow, arcing towards her hairline. From where Peter landed some blows of his own, around the time that he realized he was losing. Her fingertips come close but do not touch the skin, and Grace realizes this is as near as she’s been to the woman who rescued her in years. Maybe a decade. 

“Any lower and he could have hurt you very badly,” she says quietly.

“I don’t mind,” Grace responds, which is true. Her rage had flared up sudden and incandescent, obliterated her with its call to _do_ something, even as it narrowed her vision and made her actions intentional, channelled, controlled. Every inch of her singing with righteous vindication. It feels like something different is seeping up between them, now, but she’s not sure what it is. Even now, Dani’s guarded. And yet…

“If I could thank you, I would.” Dani says finally, before withdrawing as suddenly as if she’d touched a hot stove. Just like that, she’s upright, pivoting to retreat. “I’ll get Diaz to come in right away, take your statement. She can pass it on.”

Another one of those strange beats, as if Dani debates saying something more, and then she’s gone.

**v.**

Grace hadn’t exactly been thinking about the implications of the Augment procedure when she’d demanded it. Even being given time to reconsider hadn’t changed her mind. It was another way to instrumentalize her body: one which had failed her, was weak, punctured, hemorrhaging, shutting down; one which had barely managed to protect Dani long enough for backup to arrive.

Part of her wishes she had considered the consequences a little more. 

It’s too soon to be pushing herself this hard, much less while she’s still rehabilitating. But Grace is kicking herself, metaphorically speaking, and so she forces the issue. They tell her endurance will never fully return; the best she can train for is strength, agility, reflexes. So she’s dialled her HUD down to an occasional blip, and heaves the impossible weight of her new body up one arm-trembling inch at a time. Sweat rolls down her back. She’s managed maybe… fifteen actual pull-ups in the last ten minutes, and a scattered half-dozen aborted attempts. This after weight-lifting and other high-tension exercises that were mandated so that she could rebuild some muscle mass. Get acquainted with the feel of new tendons and titanium-reinforced bones.

Oh, sure, things had been going well enough. After Peter motherfucking Bradwaithe got dealt with, to be worthy of Dani’s continued notice was all that Grace really wanted. With every scrum training, bout of sparring, or successful return from the field with more survivors, Grace has felt like she was getting there. Acknowledgement in between meetings, in the hallways; conversations that had nothing to do with Resistance business. Things like that. 

Shortly thereafter, the Machines debuted a new Rev model – their assaults became more frequent. Grace and her unit had to be deployed more often. Sent to help the Recon and Offense teams who kept getting pinned down, or ambushed in the ruins of the city they’re trying to reclaim. Grace tried not to read too deeply into the increased frequency with which she’d started seeing Dani. _Obviously_ there would be more Tactics briefings – there was more intel to share. Harder to shake were the quiet moments in which Dani would murmur _be careful_ to Grace as they passed each other; or the fact that on returning from any mission, Grace started seeing Dani waiting in the entry bay, leaving only once she’d noticed that Grace was present and accounted for.

The change in vibe was apparent even to Kelly, who kissed Grace a fond farewell, wished her good luck, and transferred to R&D. Said this way they could avoid any awkwardness between them, stay friends. Of course Grace had protested, because obviously it’s a professional relationship, and ok, she’s got a crush – but it’ll resolve itself in due time. Kelly hadn’t budged. And Grace had expended an awful lot of energy laughing or griping about it to Tristan, especially on the nights when Grace was shaving Tristan’s head on the floor of their shared quarters and she couldn’t go anywhere without risking a nick from the straight-razor. It’s not something that was gonna preoccupy her.

Only then one day the call came in – wounded precious cargo. A code only used to describe members of the top echelons of the Resistance leadership, and Grace had known Dani was out that day, and…

Well.

Here she is.

With a frustrated grunt, Grace drops herself to the ground.

Since then, she hasn’t seen Dani other than a cursory encounter when Grace was discharged; the last thing Dani said to her was a curt order without a hint of warmth, _don’t push yourself_ , and then she’d vanished. 

It’s been weeks.

This room is reinforced and reserved for the use of Augmented soldiers. She’s not supposed to be in here unsupervised, but if she’d waited for anyone else to wake up and accompany her she was going to go out of her mind. This early in the morning, Grace is the only one here, in the vast wide concrete-floored expanse of it. Beginning to lope around the perimeter, Grace tries to imagine the soreness draining from her arms and shoulders – becoming redistributed to her legs, her core. Equilibrium. That’s what she’s after, here. But that kind of inner balance is awfully hard to come by when she’s aching and stumbling, gangly as a newborn foal and about as graceful.

Tristan, head shorn like a monk’s, tells Grace she should join her in meditation to try and reacquaint herself with her body. Bunkmate and oldest friend or not, Grace doesn’t have the heart to tell Tristan why that probably won’t work for her. Not with persistent readouts stamped onto her visual field, whether her new eyes are closed or not. Or the newness of chronic pain, sometimes flaring up in her joints or pinging through her muscles, like aftershocks of the nerve-testing they had to do as part of rehab. She can concentrate, focus if she needs to; but the mental load of doing so just became more taxing. Better to just redirect the source of the hurt, give a tangible reason for it to exist, one that she has an easier time parsing because it’s predictable in its origin.

Besides, Grace thinks, picking up her pace. When she has any amount of time to think, she’s drawn back to Dani’s conspicuous absence. Her indirect missives, passed along by Diaz – the assurance that Commander Ramos is alive, and well, and stable, thanks especially to certain members from _this very troop_. Grace is never mentioned by name, but everyone knows. Some former teammates still won’t meet her eyes. They can fuck off. For the most part it’s people who didn’t like or understand her to begin with, and seem to have decided her Augmentation was the final nail in that coffin.

She pushes the length of her stride to be even longer, racing now, but the walls of the room remain crisp – wherever her gaze lands, the visual augments can enhance and clarify what she directs her focus towards. That’s handy. On the left, she sees a few numbers fade up into existence: her speed, BPM, blood pressure, respiration rate. Faster. The speed edges up a few numbers, closer to 20, surpassing it – the other numbers rise too, but she ignores those.

There’s no rhythm to her footfalls. Not a steady one, at any rate, and Grace grunts low and frustrated back in her throat. She hates that. Needs to do better. Become effective, better than effective. Otherwise what’s the _point_.

Grace is running, now, she’s running and she _will_ learn this, how she works now – because even when it kills her, she wants it to be worth something. To stop something like this from happening to Dani ever again, even if becoming part-Machine has made Dani hate her. Or fear her. Grace curses under her breath, between gritted teeth; lowers her head as if that’ll let her block out the alerts popping up, overriding the command she’d issued to minimize her visual display earlier, and _charges_ –

**vi.**

“ _Hey!”_ Grace hears, muffled like it’s underwater. She groans; someone starts to tap along her forearm, looking for a vein. And then there’s a third voice, one she recognizes, but it makes no sense that she’d be here–

“My legs… weren’t working…” She starts to say, delirious of whom she might be speaking over, _and now my breathing doesn’t either,_ but someone is lifting her arm up and there’s a brief, sharp sting at the inner part of her elbow.

“Grace?!” Dani’s saying, _I’m Daniela,_ and Grace smiles, blinking her eyes syrupy-slow, and stretches out a hand towards a face she’d recognize anywhere…

“How’m I gonna protect you like this?” She slurs, and then there’s black.

**vii.**

“You suspended me from service?!”

A pause, as Dani registers who it is that’s barged into her office. Grace can see that she’s been caught off-guard, and there’s a moment before she pushes her chair back and stands, tone brokering no argument.

“Close the door, Harper.”

Once Grace has, Dani plants her hands on the desk – her shoulders hunch slightly forward, head lowered. When she raises her face toward Grace, the expression is wearier than Grace was expecting. That does nothing to quench the anger she feels, hot and slightly panicky.

“Before the Augmentation, I had one of the highest success rates—”

“Sit _down,_ Grace.” A warning. When Grace doesn’t move, fists clenched at her sides, Dani gestures and nods towards one of the chairs in front of her desk. Reluctantly, Grace scrapes it pointedly towards herself. Dani folds her arms across her chest and raises an eyebrow, _well?_ and Grace takes a steadying breath before she begins. 

“Commander, I completed my training.”

“Yes, you did.”

“And I haven’t accidentally crashed in over a month.”

“No, you haven’t.” Dani concedes, and Grace can’t help herself – she explodes.

“So why won’t you let me back out into the field?”

Dani shrugs slightly; tips a hand towards Grace as if all of her is the case in point and starts to pace around. “Moments like this.”

The remaining limp from the injuries she sustained is barely visible, but Grace can still see it. Feels a twinge of guilt and bright, tangy fear. Stopping just shy of where Grace is sitting, Dani holds her hands behind her back and seems to examine the contents of one of her bookshelves. “I was going to come speak with you this afternoon, but it seems you’ve beaten me to that. Which, unfortunately, only reinforces my decision for the time being.”

Grace kicks herself out of her seat and is standing before she fully realizes it. The chair clatters to the floor, and Dani doesn’t react at all other than a slight tightening of her shoulders. “I should be _helping_ people—!”

“You should be listening to your officers!” Dani is shouting, whirling to square up with Grace; an edge to her voice, she’s stepping forward, eyes flashing, jabbing a finger into Grace’s sternum. “And that includes me, whether you like it or not! I’m in charge of directing _everyone_ ’ _s_ movements, and I can’t have an Augment in the field that’s a liability to herself; certainly not one who doesn’t _follow orders_!”

The point of contact is something Grace is hyper aware of, and she wrenches away from it, quietly seething. “Why do you care?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You haven’t done this for any other Augment who’s crashed on base. I’ve asked around. We _all_ push ourselves to the limits, because we want to beat Legion – so what’s so special about me?”

At those words, Dani backs away, flicks her gaze away to glare off into a corner. Her jaw clenches; Grace can see a muscle working in her cheek.

Grace takes a step in; not too close. Leaves an opening. “I deserve to know.”

Astonishingly, Dani doesn’t yell at her again. Light catches instead, like a spark, on the tears starting to track their way down Dani’s face.

“Because what happened to you is my fault.”

That doesn’t compute.

“No, it’s not. I chose to - I _volunteered_ ,” Grace objects, and Dani makes a noise of frustration, or grief, and when she yanks on the front of Grace’s uniform she’s too startled not to be pulled in.

Dani holds her like Grace is some kind of anchor point – her arms strong, but so fragile in comparison to Grace’s new strength; her face buried at about the level of Grace’s heart. Grace doesn’t know what to do with her hands, or the fact that Dani’s front is pressed flush against hers, shoulders to hips. Dani clutches Grace to herself like… like Grace doesn’t know what.

“I waited too long to tell you again,” Dani mutters, muffled by the fabric of her shirt. “So much I should have said earlier. I was trying to be… a good leader, I don’t know. Impartial. Uninvolved so that you wouldn’t have a reason to… you see, I never got over losing you? Never a right time to tell you. And now here you are,” she continues, anguished, turning her face to the side so her voice comes more clearly, “and that probably means I’m going to lose you again.”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Grace finally figures out what to do – she places a palm along one of Dani’s cheeks and tips her head up so she can look at her. “Dani?”

“In 2042, they will send a Terminator back to kill me.”

Grace can feel her heart, beating like a hammer against the press of Dani’s body, a pulse trapped between them.

“And?”

“And you’re the one who saves me,” Dani whispers, “but you don’t make it. And God help me, I think I love you.” And she wraps a hand around the back of Grace’s head and pulls her down towards her.

The first thought that occurs to her is that... it’s not a very good kiss, like maybe Dani hasn’t done this before.

And then Grace stops thinking, starts feeling instead – explosive, exultant, angling her face to make it work better for both of them. She wraps an arm fully around Dani’s waist to yank her in closer and the _moan_ that action gets goes straight through her like a bolt of electricity. 

Within minutes she’s glad she closed the door. 

**vii.**

Promising to fuck Sarah up if she gets in Grace’s way is an attempt to establish a pecking order. 

It fails spectacularly. 

In the immediate aftermath of ditching their car, Dani picks her way through the desert brush ahead of them; Sarah in between, lugging an impressive amount of gear, and Grace a point-person in the rear hauling what was leftover. It also feels like a dig, somehow, that Sarah’s carrying the bulk of their shit. As they make their way towards a train that can get them where they’re going, Grace has plenty of time to stew. 

Dani had warned Grace that, back in the past, she wouldn’t get along with someone named Sarah. She’d been sparse on other details – just that they’d need Sarah around, which had been good enough for Grace at the time with all the other shit she’d have to remember under duress.

Lack of memory or ignorance of the specifics on Dani’s part had to have played a role in what didn’t get mentioned. Otherwise, Dani would _surely_ have let Grace know that she’d pass out trying to get crash drugs only to wake up, disoriented and in a strange room, with a gun pointed at her face by a woman she didn’t know. 

Surely.

The black hole of time in between collapsing at the pharmacy and everything that happened at the hotel doesn’t exactly warm Grace to the person who she’s supposed to save Dani alongside. Whatever conversations they had while she was out for the count seem to have endeared Sarah to Dani for reasons that Grace has to tolerate. Territoriality over the whole _we_ versus _us plus you_ distinction nearly blew everything up in Grace’s face, and she’s spent her time since then biting her tongue without being able to fully mask her dislike. 

Nothing seems to phase this woman, no matter how burnt out she is. Sarah’s arrogant, disdainful, crude as oil and incendiary as diesel. She’s also been resourceful, no-bullshit, and accommodating of the new reality of things, all of which are positive despite her caustic attitude. But Grace showed up _knowing_ things, and wasn’t prepared for Sarah not to take that into account. Instead, she seems to be retrofitting details from her own past onto Dani’s situation. Wish that element of her personality had made it into the briefing. Cause it’s a pain in the ass.

**viii.**

In the dead of that same night, when Dani asks her what happens when everything falls apart, Grace tells her honestly. About the blackouts, the bombs, and the starvation. About someone saving her. Can’t stop herself from glancing over, at that, but neither Dani nor Sarah seems to catch the moment.

It’s too fucking soon by half for Grace to divulge anything more than what she has to. Dani needs to understand what’s at stake, and no one else can reveal that but Grace – but Grace feels gridlocked by fear that she’ll jeopardize the mission if she says something Dani’s not ready to hear. When Dani signals to Grace that she’s ready to learn something through a direct request for information? Sure, that works. Parcelling things out, neat and tidy and unpalatable as rations, is all that Grace can handle. 

Except Sarah seems not to have the same level of restraint in what she shares or how. And Grace can’t tell Sarah to fuck off when she gets shit wrong, because…

The future _doesn’t_ want Dani dead for the same reason as Sarah. If she could say something, Grace would have been able to head off the particular track this conversation took. With the wind whipping her hair around her face as a train carts them ever further north towards Dani’s remaining family, Grace fumes quietly. Sarah’s words plunged into Grace’s guts, jangling and cold, _you’re not the threat; it’s your womb_. The _ignorance_! She can’t get Dani’s face out of her mind, the horror-struck bewilderment there, the disbelief etched into her brow; keeps hearing the near-grudging tone in Sarah’s voice, her intense conviction that Dani had no potential other than to repeat Sarah’s experience. That there were no other possibilities.

Nothing Grace can think to say right now would be able to comfort Dani without compromising everything. If she refutes Sarah’s statements here with any degree of certainty, she’ll have to explain why she knows for a fact that Dani never needs to give birth. Which then leads to the nature of their relationship, and the conclusion Grace’s story is inevitably heading towards…

No.

Dani knows Grace would die for her. Grace can’t let her know why. And that means holding all this sour anger back.

But it’s a cold desert night. They’re surrounded by countless other people, and Grace wants to shut down the whirring of her HUD, the minor alerts that she needs to relax _somehow_. And there’s one thing which consistently drops her blood pressure. So when she settles down to wrap her long frame around Dani, curling in to protect her from the wind and the cold and to take comfort from the proximity, she glares daggers at Sarah over Dani’s shoulder. 

Sarah returns her gaze steadily.

Uncomprehending.

**ix.**

It’s been two weeks since Dani’s confession, and they haven’t done much more than kiss, yet. All the license plates in the trailhead parking lots announce that Virginia is for Lovers, which makes Dani blush, but despite the knowing glances that Sarah’s been shooting their way, they’re making good on their promise to take things slow. 

Dani had commented earlier this evening that kissing on the mouth was nice, but all told didn’t do much – Grace told her that was normal, sometimes. Like, it feels good because of closeness, but not as good as other places. So Dani had taken Grace’s hand; invited her to demonstrate some alternatives, tugged her towards the tent they were currently sharing. Despite the fact that Sarah was nowhere close, Dani had smothered her laughter behind a hand as Grace tumbled them both onto the blankets and sleeping bags. Grace played along as though they’ve got any reason to keep quiet, even though with her enhancements she’d be able to clock Sarah’s return instantly from a mile or so out. The plan was for Sarah to stay at her friend’s cabin, play some poker and have some drinks – and alcohol makes Sarah a little clumsy.

Grace presses her mouth to Dani’s jawbone, along the soft skin of her throat, the curve of her neck towards her shoulders, the collarbone, along her chest. And it’s delicious, how Dani damn near loses her mind as the minutes tick on. Dani responds the same as always, telling Grace what feels good, which so far maps onto what Grace already knows. And an intoxicating feedback loop is cycling up in her own body. She’s absolutely wrecked, but pushes her awareness of that back with practiced ease, focusing on Dani instead. Grace needs to concentrate on her breathing, on holding back her own sounds; she’s trying to take things slow. And so she’s prepared to be satisfied with this, with Dani clutching her in closer, tightening fingers in her hair, whimpering and gasping softly.

But then Dani balks when Grace inches fingers towards her waistband.

“Are you okay?” Grace whispers, and Dani laughs – her breath rapid and ragged against the skin of Grace’s neck. She feels goosebumps rise on her arms.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s just…” And Grace can feel her struggle for words for a moment before shrugging, smiling soft and dark-eyed. “A lot.”

“Not too much?”

“So much. But you’re spending all of this time taking care of me, and I haven’t… I mean...”

“That’s nothing you need to worry about,” Grace hurries to say, but Dani runs her hands up and down Grace’s arms. She leans back slightly, like she’s drinking Grace in, measuring her.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Dani whispers, trailing her fingers along Grace’s exposed hipbones where they rise above her boxers, watching her shudder. “Do you want..?”

And now it’s Grace’s turn to freeze, despite the liquid heat all through her.

“No, I’m fine. Sarah will probably be back soon,” she ventures as an excuse, but Dani frowns a little.

“Grace – that’s not an answer.”

She reaches out to smooth some hair away from Grace’s face and it’s too gentle. “I’m fine,” Grace deflects again, interest dimming rapidly. Something akin to wordless dread rising to take its place.

But Dani keeps waiting, concern written all over her, until Grace has to drop her face into Dani’s shoulder. Her unmarred shoulder, on a body so much younger than the one she remembers. Almost like a stranger’s. Somewhere in the forest around them, an owl hoots. Grace feels a piece of gravel underneath the covers, digging into the meat of her thigh.

“I miss you, sometimes,” Grace whispers, hating how fragile her voice sounds.

The last few weeks have, in some ways, been a nightmare. Okay. She’s survived. This was not part of the plan, of any scenario which she or Dani had run prior to her being sent back in time. They’d had a couple good years. Ones where they prepared for the worst but hoped for the best. Where Dani had been her partner, figured out what Grace would need and kicked her ass, verbally or otherwise, into… actually taking care of herself. Grace hadn’t realized the extent to which she needed that kind of motivation, coming from someone who loved her; it was so much easier, with Dani around, to eat regularly. And to avoid taxing herself too hard. And to stop taking unnecessary risks, when she did eventually go out on the field again. Inevitable, because Grace was a good soldier and a deadlier Augment, and represented a significant investment. There was only so much veto power that Dani had with the other commanders, and she couldn’t keep Grace on-base for long without risking accusations of favouritism. But they’d _gotten_ love, and companionship, and Grace felt… known, for a while, in ways that caught her off guard in good ways.

So when fate caught up to them? In some ways, Dani’s sobbed revelation in the future -- _you don’t make it_ \-- had let Grace approach the entire time-travel mission from a place of strange, coherent purpose. In the past, each near miss along the way was factored in with a _not yet, I suppose_ – coupled to a bittersweet joy at having a few more precious hours. And once she’d realized the Rev-9 was destroyed and she was still here…

Sarah had commented on how _fucking stoic_ Grace remained. Despite the grudging respect she had for Sarah by that point, Grace didn’t have the guts or wherewithal to explain that she was terrified.

One day at a time, she’s built up her strength – approached the question of her continued existence from a position of doing maintenance. Medication. Food. Supplies. Instruction. Maybe it looked effortless. Because only Grace knew at this point what she needed; and if panic reared up inside her, as it frequently did, she quelled it by imagining Dani’s resolute, practical voice, from a future that may never happen again. Telling her to live. 

It keeps catching her off-balance, the things that she has to explain or take initiative on. Grace heaves out a sigh.

“I… it’s a lot, sometimes. Realizing that you’re going to have to learn me, all over again.”

Or that she’s the one who’s going to have to teach Dani the care and keeping of her.

She’s laden with want. Heavy and primed, every cell of her awake, tuned in. Layered through her memory, her skin, are moments where she was surrounding and surrounded by Dani; those are reawakened by the feeling of Dani in her arms. She’s in two places at once right now. 

More often than not she would fuck Dani senseless, and then take her turn. But it’s not without precedent that she’d let Dani have her way, whatever way she wanted: gentle and relentless, fast and rough, _anything_. Grace craves it, hands on her back and gripped tight and authoritative in her hair. Dani’s mouth biting, bruisingly, to leave marks everywhere it touched her. Or murmuring lyrical words into her ear, while Grace came bright enough that it was on the knife’s edge between pleasure and pain, her system completely overloaded. She _wants_ – the aching and the release, the take and the give, Dani’s hands on her or buried in her, Dani asking her to hold off until she was begging and the buildup was too much to wait for anymore. 

Yet it took them so long, getting to know each other to that degree. There were nights cut off because Grace abruptly couldn’t stand pressure on her chest, or loathed the way that she overtook the bed with her frame, or couldn’t get off because another sensation was overriding her and she just couldn’t let go. Cramps, sometimes, despite the absence of blood with her unpredictable and twice-yearly cycle; or phantom pain like needles in her joints and muscles from the augmentation. Racing thoughts. An inability to get outside of her head. Grace didn’t want the reminder that she had parts and pieces that she often didn’t know what to do with. Sex sometimes made her feel integrated, and other times called all the things she hated to the forefront. 

And right now the imbalance is all too clear: Grace, for once, is in a position where she could give Dani everything she doesn’t even know she _likes_. Dani’s in no place to do the same. Grace wants this to be… good, for her, pleasant and safe and uncomplicated. 

The truth is Grace wants things she can’t ask for. Not yet. 

Dani brings her back into herself by tilting Grace’s face back up toward her; kissing her, soft and gentle.

“Do you trust me?” She asks.

Grace laughs. What a question, after everything. “With my life.”

“Then trust that I’m willing to get to know you. With all the patience that you’re giving me.” 

“It’s stupid. You’ll need a fucking... instruction manual to touch me.” 

“You’re _never_ stupid. But what is it Sarah keeps saying? I’m a fast learner?” 

“Yeah. You are. But… that’s not something I’m capable of doing for you, tonight. Explaining, or guiding you. And I _want_ to, but… even thinking about it just…” 

“Shuts you down?” 

The most Grace can do is nod, once. “The last thing I want is to disappoint you. Or offend you.” 

“Oh Grace, no – you delight me! If anything, I’m glad you said something? You can always tell me no. I feel the freedom to do the same. That doesn’t mean this wasn’t amazing. Or that I wouldn’t like to do more, some other time.” A pause, then: “Though I’d like it if you showed me. Soon. Let me see what feels good, what you like? It would help me, too.”

She’s warm, and yielding, and Grace can lean into that – she has to try. For all that her heart is still racing, and no longer just from arousal, Grace also feels… safe. The way she did when a fighter stepped into view, disarmed everyone bodily and then with her words, and then held out a hand for Grace to take. 

If she wanted.

“Sure,” she swallows. “Yeah. I could do that. For now, could you just… hold me?”

“Of course.” Dani reels her in, lets Grace rest her head cradled against Dani’s chest. They stay that way for a while, Dani tracing up and down the bare skin of Grace’s back. Her movements slow, languid, comforting, until Dani’s breath deepens, evens out. After that, listening to the sound of her – calm, regular, alive – Grace follows her into sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that we're all going through it right now. We **are** going to get through everything that's happening in the world. Wherever you're reading this, I hope that this story finds you well.
> 
> I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I was inspired by Ellarend's backstory for Grace [_Because I know you (I can reach through)_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21694213/chapters/51742528). Her fic was the first one I'd read that proposed the Resistance might have a communal program for helping raise kids, and it felt like such an _of course_ moment. I can't recommend her works enough.


	3. Sarah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So maybe the things she says on the train are unkind, but it’s the kind of warning she wishes someone could have given her. After all, John in the future that Kyle came from never knew who his father was. There was no way for John to send a cautionary note back – hey, Sarah, might be that you want to think about the nature of destiny a little bit before you get into bed with this man in every way possible. Or any man! Platitudes about ‘no fate but the one you make yourself’ won’t help… not when you realize how solidly you made your fucking fate, Sarah!_   
>  _But she’s been Dani, and it sucks. At least Dani deserves to know what she’s getting into._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter notes:** Sarah-typical guilt and trauma surrounding the events of T2 and what happened to John at the start of T:DF. Mentions of alcohol abuse/dependency. Self-destructiveness to close relationships, in part because of a compounding set of stressors/traumas that Sarah’s not fully in tune with.

_If you’re Mother Mary, why do I so wanna to beat the shit out of you?_

* * *

**i.**

John is an outcome and a reminder all at once.

The truth is that Sarah hadn’t at all been thinking of the future when she made it with Kyle – just that he was a lit match of a man who claimed to love her. The feeling of being drawn to him, wanting him, being grateful for and magnetized – that was love, right? And it was fucked up and unacceptable, seeing him so afraid, so wretched with his need to protect her. What had she wanted? Sarah’d wanted to help him. To turn that intensity into something good. A way to forget, for a little while. To say it worked would be an understatement. Their time together was hard and fast and fierce – so short-lived that there was no time for sourness or boredom or second-guessing or anything complicated.

She turns the photograph of herself over and over in her hands. Now that the loop is closed, and she can see this for what it is, she thinks how stupid she was.

Because John will arrive any day now, and she’s not ready to do this alone.

**ii.**

No one tells you how to be a single mother in any country. What it steals from you, to harden yourself against the glances and judgment of others. Their evaluation.

Then there’s the knowledge of what John must become. Right now, though, he’s impossibly small, withered, puckered, ruddy. And he _screams_ , like it’ll end the world. Sarah keeps waiting for the rush of love, for a shred of maternal instinct, but all she feels is regular instinct. One skewed in the direction of terror.

Oh God, anything could happen to him.

After a while hopping back and forth along the Mexicali border, she settles in Mexico. Easier, in some strange ways, to disappear there. She spends a lot of time in libraries, requesting dual-language pamphlets in her halting Spanish – what she wouldn’t give to go back to college and finish her classes, now! – and hunched in a corner reading parenting books. Queuing up to photocopy pages and praying that John doesn’t wake up hungry or uncomfortable, so that she won’t be asked to leave for disturbing the peace with his noise. _Lo siento_ , she repeats over and over in her mind, the mantra for how she lives now: a preemptive apology, furtive in the supermarkets picking out budget items. 

There are no words for the comfort it brings her, making eye contact with other young mothers who are also alone. Here she sticks out, being white and all, but now and again someone will nod to her in a way that means solidarity. It keeps all of her soul from corroding under the pressure. Gradually, it gives her the strength to stand with her spine upright, daring to meet the eyes of anyone who sneers in her way. Later comes the ability to demand respect, waiting until she’s behind closed doors to cry if she needs to. John grows, and then they’re out of the woods, and she finds them places to live where no one asks questions about where she’s been or what she’s so afraid of.

Sarah does what she needs to, and like exercising a muscle, gradually she develops a knack for addressing John’s various and many needs. At night she plays him the tapes that she recorded when pregnant.

From hard men and harder women, she learns how to shoot a gun, tie knots, forage and hunt and harvest her own food. She develops a deep tan in agricultural fields and open desert, helping out to earn her keep. They move around, never staying in one place for too long. Sarah listens, and learns everything from how to slaughter and pluck a chicken with nothing more than a pocket knife, to the best way to hold her son in one arm (with ear protection) and unload a handgun with the other at a tin-can target. 

When he’s old enough to vocalize more than just baby-babble, she begins his education.

**iii.**

The first time she dreams of the world going up in nuclear fire, John is five or so. Sarah wakes up screaming, clawing, flailing – alarms the other young women in the co-op she and John are presently staying at. None of them can calm her down, and she has no vocabulary with which to translate her nightmare to them.

But they ring around her with their arms, compress her with their bodies until she regains a semblance of composure while a few of the others go and tend to the children. None of them press her for details. They’ve all survived something. They’re all surviving now.

A week later she picks up a magazine one of the other women brought home with her. Flips open accidentally to an article about Silicon Valley, the computer factories and designers there. How something that began in the military is going to revolutionize human communication. About how much better everything will be. 

Something in her snaps. 

She tells John they’re going back to America. 

He shrugs, not really listening. Sarah feels a twinge of irritation, before noticing what he’s working on. A wire snare. Could be used to trap a rabbit, or mess around with someone’s windpipe in a worst case scenario.

Finally, the kid’s showing some initiative. 

**iv.**

One of the first lies they try to implant at the asylum is the notion that she’s a bad mother. 

_What, because I smoked cigarettes around him in the car?_ That quip hadn’t gotten her anywhere with them, but their disgust with her is easy to shrug off in her state – what right do they have, to try and enforce morality in her situation? In their situation? Bombs and vigilantism and cross-state warrants notwithstanding, they’re all dead already, in August of 1997, and she tells them that over and over again. Of course, they never listen.

So Sarah clings to one of the truths she knows: she owes them fuck-all. Was only ever just a mother, no qualifiers about her success in the matter. Answerable to none of them.

The second truth is that she needs to get to her son, which is a harder pill to swallow over the months that drip into years. She calculates that the only way of accomplishing that goal is to play their game. Learning to behave nicely comes hard, since they’re not acting in good faith; not to mention, they’ve got her earliest days here caught on tape. Silverman likes to remind her of past indiscretions way too fucking often.

All the indignities, the humiliations, the abuses, Sarah weathers them all because it means she’ll get to see John again. Everything depends on him, and she's the only one who understands the threat he's under. When her rage in captivity grows intolerable, she tips her bed on its side and gets to work; in no time she can lift her own weight. Once, she loses control – the pen incident – and that sets her back in her progress by a good several months. No matter. She’ll master herself, eventually: bodily, mentally, in her composure and presentation. Well enough to either convince them, or to make her move. Every contingency has its own contingency.

The third truth is that Judgment Day is coming.

**v.**

On her worst nights, through the early years of the new millennium and with 1997 slipping further and further behind her, she’s haunted. If he’d grown up in the world that didn’t end, would John have come to hate her for what she’d done to him?

What kind of a failure of a mother needs her kid to look after her sanity, the way John had for her?

How could she let her guard down, after so many years with it never lowered?

Why doesn’t she have any photographs of her son?

The first time she wakes up hungover enough to puke, it reminds her of when she got morning sickness. That’s enough to have her running for a liquor store all over again. 

After repeating the exercise often enough, it no longer reminds her of anything… except, maybe, the relief of oblivion.

**vi.**

And now it’s goddamn 2020 and here’s this bright young thing, a horrible flashback to when she was in the same position. Still, if there’s one thing Sarah’s good at… well, it’s protecting someone who the future depends on. The small, idiot part of her that hasn’t withered away on booze or self-loathing dares to believe that she’ll be able to train Dani. Almost relishes the chance at a do-over, a chance to be unimportant. That is, if she and this Grace person can keep her alive long enough for that to transpire. Keeps her hopes manageable.

So maybe the things she says on the train are unkind, but it’s the kind of warning she wishes someone could have given her. After all, John in the future that Kyle came from never knew who his father was. There was no way for John to send a cautionary note back – hey, Sarah, might be that you want to think about the nature of destiny a little bit before you get into bed with this man in every way possible, or _any_ man! Platitudes about ‘ _no fate but the one you make yourself_ ’ won’t help… not when you realize how solidly you made your fucking fate, Sarah!

But she’s been Dani, and it sucks. At least Dani deserves to know what she’s getting into.

These are all the thoughts that run through her mind as Grace stands, poised and uncannily balanced, at the rear part of the train car. 

What’s her problem? Someone from the future, you’d think she’d know the score. It’s been a while since Sarah’s had her ass kicked, recreationally or otherwise. If Grace didn’t have a stick shoved up hers, maybe Sarah would see if the other woman was so inclined to make good on her threats. Something Sarah’s said here struck a nerve. 

Wish she knew which one. 

**viii.**

In retrospect she’s not sure exactly when the subtext became text. Grace is many things, but not as subtle as she thinks.

The truck ride up to Dani’s uncle is probably what pings Sarah’s radar earliest. Up until that point, she’d been trying to get a read on whether Grace was trying to start something. Wouldn’t be the first time a woman’d gotten her attention a similar way, getting into Sarah’s space as some kind of dare-you come on. Looking at Grace, she reckons sex would be a good time. No illusions about it being an equal match – Grace would have her beat on the physical front – though sometimes that’s the point, right? Grace tries hard, but Sarah’s played with brats before, men and women – and Sarah wouldn’t mind taking Grace down a few pegs for their mutual benefit, if that’s what she’s after. 

Except Grace ignores Sarah entirely, after the Mother Mary comment. Pointedly takes up the rear quarter of the truck bed that Sarah flags for them, playing her _I’m an old woman trying to help my granddaughter get to a relative’s house_ role, and pretends not to see Sarah’s _told you so_ grin when the tactic works. 

In fact, Grace doesn’t even say thank you. And with Dani’s head in her lap, she’s not one for conversation on the rest of the trip. 

Sarah watches them for a while, and then the burnished gold of the landscape around them, the coin-bright blue sky empty of clouds. 

She’s felt that kind of exhaustion before, that makes you fall asleep on a stranger. 

From the way Grace looks at Dani, Sarah has to wonder how well they know each other. 

Jealousy, metallic and bitter as a bullet, lodges itself in her guts for a moment. She reminds herself she’s got more important things to do than fuck around with a soldier from the future. After all, it ended _so well_ the first time for her.

Still, it’s hard not to watch Grace closely. Just because Sarah knows her chances of getting some are slim doesn’t mean she can’t appreciate the view. New details start making themselves apparent, ones that Sarah wonders how she missed before. For example, the tells in how Grace circles Dani; or the transparent attempts to impress, whether it’s with the stupid butterfly knife or her ability to perceive a drone from miles out and above them.

Then there’s how Grace stands down immediately whenever Dani demands something, no matter how foolish the order. Like at the border, when the floodlights came on and Dani surrendered, and the rest of them had to follow suit. Grace’s first move was to plead with Sarah to act as a surrogate protector when they inevitably got separated. In a defensive _you know I wouldn’t ask you for anything_ tone, but made raw by desperation. 

Sarah’s still thinking about that moment, as she urges herself, _run faster!_ across the tarmac on the detention center’s roof. Because as she sees the chopper in front of her, Grace at the helm, she realizes that she’s glad to see Grace in one piece. 

But Grace has a stunned look on her face, staring in Sarah’s direction, with her hands on the controls and the rotors snapping the air into a lashing wind. Sarah almost believes, for a split second, that the look might be reserved for her. 

Then she registers Dani, holding a gun all wrong and unloading every bullet to poor effect, hitting the Terminator in front of her out of chance when she lands a shot at all. 

Sarah scoops an arm around Dani’s waist, shoving them both into the helicopter and swivelling to draw a bead of her own. 

At this distance, Sarah’s never been more aware of the inadequate shield that her smaller frame makes. 

She fires – and doesn’t miss. 

It takes her several minutes to catch her breath as they fly into the night, which never would have happened even five years ago. Sarah rubs her wrists absently between her curled fingers, making sure that she didn’t pull something with that chokehold. Some part of her is glad she’s still got it, that she could take three men down while handcuffed before freeing herself and bolting. A louder, less forgiving part knows that the only reason she and Dani aren’t pulped across the landing pad is because the Rev-9 started out from slightly further back. 

“Dani, you need to understand something,” Grace begins, tight and rattled, and Sarah tunes back in. “You can’t do stupid shit like that.” 

Finally, Sarah thinks. She’s amazed it’s taken this long for Grace to call Dani on her bullshit. 

“You _cannot_ put yourself at risk,” Grace continues, and Dani’s response is immediate and biting. 

“He would have killed Sarah–!”

“ _That doesn’t matter_.” 

Oh. 

Well, that’s not subtext. 

“When are you gonna get it?” Grace spits out. “Everybody _dies_ if you don’t make it!” 

Sarah shifts. The adrenaline is fading from her system, and her joints are acid, and Dani settles back in her seat, clearly appalled. Maybe Dani’s not the only one who needed to hear that. At least it clarifies things, once and for all. Her own position in all of this. 

For the first time in her life that she can remember, Sarah feels wholly expendable. Like she’s finally disappeared, become irrelevant, the way she always wished she could.

Doesn’t feel as good as she thought. 

Sarah turns to Dani, who’s still shaking her head in disgust. 

“She’s right.” 

**ix.**

In the aftermath of everything, Sarah isn’t quite sure how to live. Not in the usual sense, the one that drives her to lose herself in a bottle, but from the dissonance of having to adjust her routines. It turns out she has those, whether the world’s moved on without her or not. They’re thrown into sharp relief, around Dani and Grace; even more so because she knows, definitively, that Carl’s not going to be around to give her years structure anymore. 

Old habits die hard, and she knows what to do with herself when it comes to the basics: acquiring transportation; connecting off-the-grid to old friends, sometimes old lovers; digging up resource caches; hooking into low-fidelity comms systems when she needs to give someone a heads up prior to their arrival. Bringing two more along for the ride verges on fun – it’s satisfactory, getting hints of Dani’s admiration, or the implication that Grace is impressed at the extent of her network. Major Dean survived, tough old asshole, and keeps her apprised of people and places to look out for – she’s still wanted for domestic terrorism, after all, a charge which has no expiration date in the good ol’ U S of A.

It was on his good advice that they started winding their way north in the weeks after defeating the Rev-9 – she’s got a cottage hideout in Ontario she figures will work well enough as a base of operations for the time being, and it’ll be simple enough to slip into Canada. Feels right again, to have a rough-cut purpose beyond waiting for the next set of coordinates to drop into her phone inbox, or trying to kill time through anything able to fuck her up in a way that’s useful.

And when it comes to firearms, well, Dani is more of a natural than she’d expected. Advances rapidly through the exercises that Sarah sets for her. Comes back each day hungry for more. Next thing you know, she’ll be getting through martial training as well; though Grace seems to have her covered on that front. 

On other fronts too, though Sarah’s pretending not to notice that for the most part. Better if she doesn’t think about it. Simpler. Keep her dirty mind to herself. 

There are other aspects of their arrangement that’re also less easy to get used to. Like the fact that she had to get rid of the sling for her dislocated shoulder too early, just so that the two others would stop treating her like a goddamn invalid. Or that Dani worries, out loud, about the tremor in Sarah’s hands when she’s gone too long without a drink. Not even Grace has gone there. The thought that she might be accountable to someone about her liver function? Pain in her ass.

“Tell you what,” she’d snapped at Dani. “Why don’t you give yourself another 20 years or so, see how _you’re_ faring, and then you can tell me what to do with my body. Worry about yours, and _hers_ , since the two of you are guaranteed to outlive me anyways.”

Grace hadn’t liked that at all. But they’re trying to make nice, most of the time. Whatever grudging camaraderie they developed while saving Dani’s life is tenuous at best, but they keep things functional.

Speaking of Grace, she requires a caloric load of around 5000 calories or more as a baseline _per day_ , along with an entire shaker’s worth of salt or so to stave off dysautonomia. They made the mistake of stopping in at a Waffle House at 3 am, somewhere through Virginia once they hopped back off the Appalachian Trail. Some truly appalling things happened to eggs and sundry other protein sources at that location. The wait staff didn’t blink an eye – a testament to their fortitude and the fuckery they must see on a daily basis. Still, finding ongoing and varied sources of nutrition for a nearly 6-foot tall augmented human? It puts some strain on Sarah, who’s more used to fending for herself and making do, post-menopausal diet or not.

Right now they’re somewhere rural. Camping in the backyard of one of Sarah’s buddies near a rural Iron Mountain facility, close to the coast but far from Washington. First time any of them has had a proper shower in way too long. And it’s been a pretty good couple of days, except…

“For Chrissakes,” Sarah grumbles. “And I thought I needed to worry about my saturated fats.”

“You make a good point. We’ll get some avocados or something the next time we hit a supermarket,” Dani muses, on her side of the fire. She’s testing a new knife of hers against a stick.

“Huh?” Grace manages around a mouth full of fried meat.

“Never mind.”

“No one’s stopping you from helping yourself,” Grace fires back, despite the fact that the entire fried chicken in front of her is now more carcass than bird. Already her attention is drifting back, and it looks like she’s debating cracking a bone between her teeth to get at the marrow.

“With the shit _you_ do to my blood pressure? Think I’ll pass on the heart attack. Just don’t give yourself one either.”

“Awww.” Grace tosses her head to flick the hair out of her eyes, with all the attitude of an adolescent boy. “I didn’t know you cared that much, _mom_.”

Sarah feels herself go rigid, instantly.

“Don’t call me that.”

The scraping sounds from Dani’s direction stop. Grace pauses in the ravaging of her dinner, speaks up first. “…fuck, I’m—”

“Don’t!” She has to take a breath. “Travelling with the two of you? Looking out for you? That’s fine. Just _peachy_. But I’m _never_ going to be anyone’s _mother_ , ever again, not even as a fucking joke, so don’t ask me to be and don’t call me that.”

By the end she’s not… yelling, exactly, but can feel a head of pressure built up behind her eyes. Sarah stares into the heart of the fire until she can see black blotches swimming in her vision. The silence from Grace should be more satisfying than it is.

Was it the tone that did her in? Or just the words themselves? And then there’s footsteps, the sound of movement coming towards her. 

“Sarah,” Dani begins softly, before she lays a hand on Sarah’s shoulder. Sarah manages to quell the instinct to flinch. That’s something she’s gotten better at. Dani’s noticed she doesn’t like being touched without warning, but that touch is helpful all the same. Dani crouches down beside her, slipping her fingers from Sarah’s shoulder so she can place them gently atop one of Sarah’s hands.

“We’re sorry.” Dani says, as though she’s done anything. “You know neither of us thinks of you that way. And that’s not your role, to us. But we won’t say something like that again.”

Wrenching her gaze back up, Sarah makes eye contact through her now-watering vision with Grace. Grace’s hands dangle between her knees, and she’s glaring into the coals inscrutably; but if Dani sets a limit, then Grace will make it so. And when Sarah turns her head to look at Dani instead, the woman’s looking up at her with something intense and sober in her eyes. Grace flings the bone she’s been gnawing on into the fire, where it sizzles faintly.

“You don’t have to treat me like I’m delicate, either,” Sarah says at last, but she turns her palm face-up and squeezes Dani’s hand. A log falls against the others, lands at a steeper angle. Sparks dart up into the sky, and disperse; eventually, Dani lets go and leaves her behind, returns to her place close by.

All the same – Sarah’s pulse is quickened and she can’t seem to make it calm down. A conversation resumes. Nothing related. With every passing moment she’s increasingly drawn taut, in a way no one can see. Only half-there – off-set, the way a rifle-scope blurs the edges of what the viewfinder shows when you look through it. And the more Sarah interrogates the exchange, brief though it was… circles around the question of why she can’t just _calm the fuck down_ , the less she likes the conclusions she’s coming to.

She hardly sleeps that night.

Up too late, thinking.

**x.**

The next day, Sarah charts their next moves on a map of the northeastern states spread out on the backyard table in front of her.

“We’ll cut up through Pennsylvania, into New York State. Might take refuge in the Adirondacks for a while - I’ve got some survivalist friends who’ll let us cache our weapons, and you could stand to learn a thing or two from them. Figure out a way across the St. Lawrence, and things should be relatively straightforward from there on out.” She traces with a finger over the weaving lines of the roads and interstates, the dots that represent towns and cities. Grace’s eyes follow.

“And then?”

“You’re lucky it’s summer. Might have to deal with blackflies where we’re going, but otherwise you’ll manage comfortably enough once I get you settled. In the fall you can decide whether to come back south or head somewhere else.”

Dani looks up from where she’s sitting at the end of the table bench, picking with her knifepoint at the wood-grain. From her peripherals Sarah catches Dani’s frown as something in her tone registers. That was fast. Motherfucker, she forgot how perceptive they both are.

“What’s with the pronoun shift?” Grace asks, and Sarah turns to avoid Dani’s stare, looks her straight in the eye and shrugs.

“This… arrangement? It’s running its course, isn’t it? You’re not a complete disaster in public anymore – get somewhere remote and no one will even notice anything wrong with you. Both of you are handy. Find somewhere rural you can continue in the trades and where firing a gun won’t land you in shit, and you’ll get by until she’s needed.”

“Wait…” And there’s already a wariness Dani’s voice that Sarah doesn’t like. “You’re talking about leaving?”

She shrugs again, fortifying herself; this’ll be for the best. “Not right away, but I’m not cut out for this shit. Better off alone – I’ll fuck off to, I dunno, try and track down whoever is responsible for Legion. Go out becoming what they call me, before anything worse happens —”

“Are you fucking _serious_ , Sarah?”

“— and before I… excuse me?”

“No.” Grace is the one shaking her head, stepping towards her. “No, you don’t get to do that.”

“Since when do _you_ get to tell me shit?” Jabbing a finger like an accusation towards Grace, Sarah feels a sneer curl on to her face; still can’t bring herself to look at whatever Dani’s expression might be doing. “I’ve made my decision. If it makes you feel any better, you can track me down whenever you damn well please with your,” she makes mocking air-quotes around the words, “ _future shit_ , and we’ll call ourselves even.”

“What are we supposed to do without you?” Dani pleads behind her.

“Nothing I can afford to care about – if you’re the inevitable saviour of the world, I’m sure you’ll be fine, right?”

Grace’s face has morphed from disbelief to angry bemusement; as she folds her arms across her chest, Sarah can see the tension cording in her muscles, the way Grace’s fingernails bite into the soft flesh of her forearms, whitening to the same tone as her scars. She scoffs, “Unbelievable. After all that shit about Dani being John—”

“ _Don’t you say his name!”_

A bird in a nearby tree squawks in alarm, flaps away leaving the branches rustling. Sarah feels raw in her throat from the escalation, the force of shouting. The pinching pressure of a headache is starting up in her temples, twin points of stabbing pressure. She needs a goddamn drink.

“…Is that what this is about?” Dani asks, impossibly soft. “Sarah? Is it what we said last night?”

“No,” she lies. “No, I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.” Only half a lie. “There’s no comparison to draw, I’m just done.” 

Another lie. “Look, this dynamic the two of you have going? Cute and all, really precious, but it’s got no room for me. Sooner you fend for yourself, make your own connections, the quicker you’ll learn what it actually means to be a leader, and I can get back to _real_ work instead of playing babysitter. If you knew anything about me, you’d have picked up on the fact that’s not my strong suit.”

“So why can’t we go with you for that? Why make this decision without consulting us?” Dani counters, and when Sarah finally glances back to look at her, she stabs her knifepoint down into the table. Sarah gets a prickle down her spine and returns Dani’s glare, hardening her gaze against her for the first time. “You’re capable, and I’m learning so much from _both_ of you – different things, but still important. You’re not our… babysitter, you’re a _teacher_. And I thought we were a team, Sarah!”

That stings, but she can’t afford to let it get to her.

“Hate to break it to you kiddo, but you thought wrong.” She snatches her map away from between them and starts folding it up. She’s walking away, already thinking about the stash of booze in her gear, how many shots it might take to calm her racing pulse and fuzz out the clamour in her mind. Ignores whatever hushed, urgent debate they’re having behind her. Grace shouts after her.

“If you’re going to leave, fine! We won’t stop you, when it’s time, but – but we _need_ you around–”

Sarah stops, dead in her tracks, barks a laugh, spins on her heel.

“You need me?” Stalking back towards them, she gets right up in Grace’s face. “That’s your best argument? Piss poor for a last-ditch attempt at convincing me to stay! I don’t need _you_.”

Dani speaks up again, iron-toned, “We all know that’s not–”

Sarah detonates. “I need you like I need a hole in my head! You’re a constant fucking reminder that I _lost_. Until you two showed up in my life, I was under the impression that John’s death _meant something_ —”

Her voice splinters on the last words, and all of a sudden she’s gulping down a razor-blade sob in her throat. Grace just stands there, all of a sudden looking stricken; she hears Dani gasp softly. Sarah’s breath stabs all the way down, like she’s trying to suck in air through a straw, and it takes a few deep inhalations before the pressure loosens enough to speak again.

“You know I got two signatures in Mexico City? _Two_. I had a fifty-fifty chance of picking which to target, and I picked _yours_. Chose wrong, didn’t I? I could have died the way I expected to, facing down a Terminator, and never known everything I’ve been doing was for _nothing_.”

She struggles for how to finish, what she means – but her thoughts are too fractured at this point, like a spray of glass after a window breaks, so she ends with, “ _Fuck_ you.”

This time, when she storms away, neither of them makes a move to try and follow her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for leaving this chapter on this note, but it shouldn't take long before the last chapter is ready to be posted. I have so many thoughts and feelings about Sarah Connor, and what might need resolving for her if Grace had lived.  
> I hope that wherever you are, you're healthy and safe. Stories - telling them or reading them - is what's getting me through. Thank you for reading.


	4. Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Chapter notes:** Descriptions of a fight scene in which a knife is pulled.

_Grace looks at Dani with something vulnerable and shining in her eyes. "I don’t know how I made it through the next few years. Mostly I try not to think about it. But I got lucky. Someone found me. Saved me. And then… we started fighting back."_

_Neither of them expected Sarah to speak up, but she does. "And let me guess. Dani gives birth to the one man who can stop it."_

_"...What?"_

_Sarah shrugs, insouciant. "The future wants you dead for the same reason it wanted me dead."_

_"But I'm nothing, I'm nobody!"_

_"Yeah, you're not the threat. It's your womb." Sarah settles back heavily, as though the proclamation was taxing. "Fine. Let someone else be Mother Mary for a while."_

_Grace scoffs. "If you're Mother Mary, why do I so wanna beat the shit out of you?"_

* * *

**i.**

“So what, we’re just supposed to let her _go?_ ” 

Dani’s trying, she really is, but every instinct in her is screaming to follow Sarah, and only Grace’s intervention stops her from doing so. Grace frowns into the distance, in the direction that Sarah took off, and scuffs a foot through the dirt while her fingers drum restlessly on the tabletop. They sit next to each other, but their bodies are angled away for the first time that Dani can remember. 

“It doesn’t sound like she planned to do anything right away. If we give her a second to cool off… besides, it should probably be me who talks to her.” 

“Why? She listened to me about Carl–” 

“Yeah, and she was angry at _him_. I set her off last night, and whatever she says or does, I can take it. You shouldn’t have to see that.” 

Dani lets that sink in, then yanks her knife free of the table wood. “That’s stupid. You’re right, but it’s _stupid_. What is happening, it’s so much bigger than any of us. Sarah knows that, or seemed to until now. How she’s acting doesn’t make _sense_.” 

“It does, though. We know she’s been through a lot. You remember how you reacted? When she talked about you having a kid? It’s not the same but, like that. It’s not personal, Dani.” 

“Feels like it is.” 

“We’ve relied a lot on her. And I’ve been an asshole more often than not. Can’t have helped.” 

Dani feels a surge of impotent heat all through her, tries to still the miserable tremble of her mouth. “I just don’t know what to do. She’s _hurting_ , Grace, or she wouldn’t be doing this… and I’m so scared of losing her.” 

Grace reaches out and squeezes her hand, before rising. “...Are you going to be okay? If I go for a walk, I mean. I need to think about this.” 

A moment before Dani nods, determined to hold back her furious tears until Grace has left. Dani feels rigid, brittle – has the sensation she used to get as a kid, when she’d done something she shouldn’t have and was worried that someone had noticed, was going to call her on it. 

Once the taller woman is out of sight, Dani flings her knife towards a nearby tree. The angle is all wrong. Rather than sticking into the bark, point-first, the way Dani has seen Sarah or Grace demonstrate a million times, the knife bounces; tumbles to the ground. When she sees that, she lets herself go – cries, silently, the tears rolling hot and acidic down her face. 

Dani remembers days ago, before they’d arrived here, when she’d woken up first and emerged from the tent to see Sarah stoking up a fire. She’d been staring into the kindling, the quiet initial stages of a burgeoning flame. Small tongues of light in an incubator of twigs, crackling and snapping and slowly growing brighter. 

In a bundle in Grace’s pack, they’ve been keeping some dried firewood. Having retrieved some, Dani saw Sarah glance up towards her; she’d leaned back, nodding towards the fire. Dani had known what that meant – her turn to step in – and under Sarah’s eyes Dani built up a small lean-to. Gaps beneath the slim pieces of wood, for the air to pass through and stoke things up higher. When one fell out of alignment, Dani had used another stick to prod it back into place. Without saying much of anything, Dani had watched for Sarah’s tells: a slight nod, a grunt of approval when things were built up for the fire to be self-sustaining. It felt good, glowing, to be under Sarah’s positive regard.

And then Sarah had tapped her collarbone. 

_You having a good time?_

By now, the mottled bruise on Dani’s throat has faded… but when Sarah had called attention to it, the hickey had still been livid, fresh. And Dani hadn’t realized it was there. Mortified, she had tugged her sweater up, but Sarah just shook her head and laughed rough and low back in her throat. 

_I’m not one to judge,_ Sarah had said. _Hell, if the soldier who’d come back to save me had lived? I would’ve kept jumping his bones too, and he was apparently my son’s best friend. It’s all a mindfuck. Have your cake and eat it too._

Dani hadn’t understood the figure of speech, and even after searching for a moment Sarah couldn’t find an equivalent phrase in Spanish to explain what she meant. She’d shrugged it off and settled on something else Dani _did_ understand. 

_You’ve gotten to dodge every bullet I never saw coming_. 

Sarah had been so matter-of-fact. Dani hadn’t known what to say, how to respond, so instead she’d just made them all breakfast. But now she wonders what else Sarah might have been talking about, and a strange defensiveness rises up. 

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Dani mutters to herself, sniffing and scrubbing at her face as though crying is evidence to the contrary, but knowing that doesn’t make her feel any better. 

Nor does knowing that different doesn’t mean easier, or that she has lost things too - suffered, and ended up in what amounts to exile. So many things that could still happen to them, all too horrible to contemplate for very long, and so Dani doesn’t. Or hasn’t. Until now, when another kind of loss is what threatens. She’d been operating under the assumption that things were fine, and apparently they weren’t. Whether she ought to feel betrayed, or like the trespasser, Dani isn’t sure.

Now Dani’s pacing around the campsite they’ve made, the toes of her boots digging into soft loam; she avoids treading on the carpets of vivid green moss, the tender ferns. Her tears were spent, quicker than usual. Does that mean she’s getting tougher? It doesn’t matter. Neither of the others come back, and she’s glad they didn’t see her like this. It’s the middle of the morning, the sun not yet at full heat – later, the humidity will be almost suffocating. That process is already in motion; Dani can feel the air, thick in her lungs, and everything around her is so quiet. There’s nothing to do but wait. 

Some saviour she is. 

Unbidden, Dani remembers something else she’d said. Before the border. On the train, sometime in the early hours of the morning? No, it was after that. The memories are jumbled – her sense of time ruptured – but the words remain clear. 

Dani had needed rest, and they were still so far from her uncle’s house. The sun had been mercilessly hot. None of them had slept well. And Sarah kept on pushing Dani, forcing her forward so that they could find the road they were looking for, with none of the same underlying care or softness that Grace had been able to show. 

When Dani stumbled, Sarah caught her roughly and made her stand, and Dani had whirled on her like a rattlesnake that had been stepped on. 

_I really hope the future doesn’t do to me what it did to you._

The briefest lapse, before Sarah had agreed. _Me too_. 

Dani doesn’t know if she ever apologized for saying that. 

**ii.**

Grace locates Sarah much further up in the woods than she was expecting to. Sarah had left their main bag with its zipper gaping open, a heavy set of footprints, and a trail of broken twigs left in her wake as she forged a path through the underbrush. It wasn’t difficult to trace her. 

Especially when the gunshots started up. 

From atop a low ridge overlooking a rocky gully with saplings clinging doggedly onto the sides, Grace sees Sarah squint one eye closed, take aim. Sarah’s almost mechanically precise. Accurate, too. She’d probably be doing even better, if she wasn’t firing a shorty pump-action shotgun single-handed while the other tilted an open bottle of whiskey into her mouth. When her finger pulls the trigger again, the young tree trunk she’s pointed the gun at splinters, a spray of wood-shards and bark around a raw and open wound that nearly exposes heartwood. 

The barrel tips up; she tries to load it again single-handed, but either her motion is sloppy or doesn’t have enough force behind it. 

“Fuck,” Grace hears her mutter. She watches as Sarah juggles both the bottle and her weapon, nearly stumbling over the rucksack at her feet. Ultimately, though, she succeeds at reloading once she has slightly more leverage. 

She probably shouldn’t be seeing this; at least not without Sarah knowing she’s there. So it’s now or never. “Hey–” Grace calls out, before– 

The muzzle whips around to face her and Grace darts to one side – _BANG!_ – just in time for the sapling she’s standing in front of to explode. Before the branches can start toppling to one side, hanging down into the ravine by the remnants of a shredded trunk, her reflexes kick in. Grace half-skids, half-bounds, rock-to-scree to a skidding halt as she impacts next to Sarah; and she grips the forestock, points it up and away from them. 

“What the _fuck_ –”

“– _the fuck_ are you sneaking up on me for?!” Sarah growls, cutting Grace off. 

“I was _trying_ to… are you drunk?” 

Sarah sniffs, and it’s on her breath; in the slight weave to her head. “Not drunk enough. Go away so I can get all the way there.” 

Sarah twists the shotgun away from Grace, though Grace doesnt let it go easy. “If you’re aiming to draw attention to yourself, to _us_ , this is a hell of a good way to do that.” 

Sarah just barks a laugh. Points around her with the hand still, somehow, holding onto her bottle. “This is rural Appalachia. What I’m doing is their Sunday afternoon. Hasn’t changed that much, since the last time I’ve been.” She pauses, then, a leer stretching onto her face. “Did Dani send you to try and make nice?”

Grace bristles but collects herself. Of course Sarah would escalate; they’ve got a habit of sniping at each other. This interaction isn’t off to a great start, but it’s still salvageable. She breathes through her nose, draws it down into her navel and forces herself to lean away from a cutting response. 

“No, Dani didn’t _send_ me. I brought myself.” 

“ _Wow_ – she let you off-leash then?” 

Sarah starts to go for another pull of whiskey, but Grace seizes her wrist partway up. The liquor sloshes, and Sarah tries to pull away. 

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.” 

“Let go of me.” 

Another futile tug, and Grace feels it – how fragile Sarah is in comparison, despite all her strength. If Grace isn’t careful, she’ll do some actual damage. 

“No. We need to talk.”

Sarah arches an eyebrow, but she’s anything but calm. “Oh, we’ve done the talking thing.” 

“I know you’re trying to provoke me. It’s not going to work, and I think you can handle this. What was it you said when we met about grown-up conversations?” 

“Right, well, that was _way_ before you started taking the term _motherfucker_ literally.” 

And Grace knows Sarah’s been trying to bait her, but she’s still stunned – widens her eyes in shock, loosens her grip just a fraction, which is the opening Sarah was waiting for. 

The gun she's been holding at her side swings up, bashes against the side of Grace’s skull, whiting out her vision for a split second. 

It’s enough for Sarah to pull loose. In the time it takes Grace to recover, blinking away the cascade of fuzzy blotches swarming across her vision, Sarah has ducked around to the other side of her. Near their feet, a bottle lands; smashes.

Snarling, fierce, Sarah swings the gun wildly towards Grace once more, holding it by the barrel. 

Grace ducks under the arc of it, her heel crunching on shards of broken bottle and the burnt-caramel smell of whiskey tangible around her. She hears it _, whumpf_ , through the air just above her head; at the last second snatches up. 

Sarah’s hand rips free with her own momentum; the shotgun stays put in Grace’s. 

Grace flings it to one side; it clatters against stone, and, low and fast, she darts a single step away. This time, it’s Sarah’s fist that she narrowly avoids. 

An outraged cry tears out of Sarah’s throat, primal and chilling – Grace ignores it, sweeps with her leg to trip Sarah up. But Sarah, somehow, has seen this coming. 

She dodges, barely. Grace can see the slight overcorrection in her footwork, the barest hint of a stumble. 

This would be a good moment to move in. To crack Sarah along her neck, knock her out; or to tackle her down, subdue her among the dirt and stones and leaf-mulch at their feet. She can see the angles, the semi-transparent lines of approach sketched as part of her combat overlay. It would be easy, and then over. 

Instead, Grace backs away. Circles, matches Sarah’s movement, as she whirls around. 

“I won’t fight you, Sarah!” 

“Why the fuck not? Afraid you’ll lose?” She draws up, like a boxer; preparing for close combat. 

Sarah steps, jabs; Grace knocks her arm away easily, notes the brief look of confusion that crosses Sarah’s face. 

“No, that you’re gonna hurt yourself.” 

Sarah hardens again. 

“Cut the shit, coward! Dani’s got you whipped, doesn’t she? _Doesn’t_ she?” Sarah goes for the eyes; again Grace blocks with a forearm. Deflects the blow upwards. “Come _on_ –!” 

A haymaker, an attempt at a throat punch. Sarah is a canny fighter, even while she’s compromised; does her best to stay in Grace’s blind spots. She’s vocal. Goading. 

“Are you worried mommy’s gonna be _mad_ at you? Trying to be the bigger person? I’ve _seen_ you, I know what you’re capable of, you _like_ this shit, probably get off on it, now fucking _fight me_!” 

Amongst the steady stream of abuses, Sarah feints. A hand dips down towards her boot, draws back up holding a knife. 

It flares, mapped in red, in Grace’s vision. Crouched, almost feral, Sarah darts forward with the blade raised. 

Before Grace can decide what to do, Sarah gets close enough to slash: once, twice. Grace retreats, trying to think. Unarmed is one thing, but this–

A third carving motion whizzes by her stomach, too close for comfort. 

Sarah presses the heel of a palm against the hilt to give her strike extra force, stabs the knife forward with a snarl towards Grace’s navel. 

Reflex kicks in. 

Sarah howls as Grace’s boot-tip cracks against her wrist. The knife clatters from her grasp, but Grace isn’t done. 

She folds her hand into a fist and punches Sarah in the mouth. Pulls the punch, the tiniest bit, so she won’t crack teeth. 

After contact, Sarah grins. Looks dazed, and finally, for the first time, satisfied.

Oh. 

That’s the point of this, isn’t it? 

As Sarah starts to reel back, almost falling, Grace seizes up the front of her shirt and holds the older woman up at arm’s length. 

“Quit using me to hurt yourself. Get this out of your system if you need it, but we’re not giving up on you. Or leaving you behind.” 

Sarah collects herself, shaking off a momentary flash of bewilderment. Coughs out a laugh, spits to the side. “Little late for that, isn’t it? Everything else has.” 

Sarah grips Grace’s hand and _shoves_ , and Grace lets her go. This time Sarah staggers back, a few steps, leg nearly buckling. But Sarah – fucking hell, she’s tougher than Grace thought – renews her efforts to strike at Grace even more recklessly. 

It’s heartbreaking, how Sarah stumbles but remains standing. Keeps coming forward, no matter how many times Gracks dips or ducks to one side or the other, just out of Sarah’s reach.

Almost pleading now, Grace continues: “We’re still here, trying to get you to stay. So you know that’s not true.” 

“It is! Has been since John took two to the chest and stopped breathing. He was supposed to save the world–”

“Yeah? He was just a _kid_ –”

Sarah ignores her, speaks louder, keeps advancing.

“–and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing for him in the end–”

“–you did the best you could–” 

“–even though he saved me–” 

“–and he didn’t save the world, _you did!_ ” 

At last, Grace can go no further; there’s a rock wall at her back that her heel’s bumped up against. Sarah sees this, grimaces in triumph.

And when she comes in for a strike, Grace catches. A closed fist, her open palm.

Sarah looks shocked, then furious, tries to club her wildly with the other hand. 

Grace catches that arm at the wrist, steps to the side, swings Sarah around like a dance partner and reverses their positions. She steps in, hipbone pressed to Sarah’s midsection so that she won’t be able to get leverage with her legs. . 

Holds Sarah’s arms up in a _surrender_ position. Settles in to become immobile. 

Sarah struggles, grunts; when she can’t get free, she spits towards Grace’s face. Grace avoids that, and Sarah _howls._

“You _fucker_ , you know it’s not the same! I failed as a mother, I failed as his _protector,_ god _fucking_ damn you Grace, let go of me!!” 

“And I’m from another _future_ that failed, Sarah, so would you shut the fuck up and listen?!” 

She waits, rooted, until Sarah’s frantic motions slow. Then still. They’re both breathing heavily, and finally, Sarah lets herself fall limp. 

The first one to break grip, Grace put her hands up first, stepping back. Sarah stumbles away, wipes her hand on her mouth - spits blood into the dirt. Says nothing. Grace tastes gunmetal and rolls her tongue along the surface of her teeth. 

“We both know Dani… doesn’t get it. Not yet. And neither of us _wants_ her to understand–” 

“Speak for yourself–”

“Let me finish! We don’t want her to understand the kind of thing this can do to people. Look at you. Look at me. You can guess the kind of shit I’ve seen, so…” And her voice cracks, the thinnest amount, in spite of herself. “There’s no good way to deal. I followed you so I could tell you that you were right.” 

Sarah looks up slow and heavy and dark, cocks her head to one side. “Well, now you’ve got my attention, at least. Exactly what was I right about?” 

“All that time ago, when you said we wouldn’t last ten minutes without you. It was true back then, and it’s true now. I’ve got next to no idea what the fuck I’m doing! No plan. If it’s just the two of us, I don’t think Dani will make it.” Grace swallows. “Or me. I.... I don’t know what happens next. Alone, I think we’d just keep running. With you…maybe we could do the same thing you did the first time ‘round.”

“Which is?” 

“Stop Legion. Cancel Judgment Day. You’re the only person on earth who’s been through this before and _beat it!_ It’s not fair to ask you to do more than what you’ve done already, but you’re the only shot we’ve got. Whatever you’re made of is stronger than me. And we need that.” 

After Grace is done, Sarah sags visibly. 

“...What’s even the point?” 

“You’re asking me?” Grace snorts. “You know _my_ answer is her. She’s the point. The only thing worth I thought was worth leaving everything else behind for. Maybe that’s not noble, or brave, but I don’t give a fuck. For you? I dunno. Maybe what matters is that you’re still here, and Dani can’t get through what’s happening to her without you. Does that at least appeal to your ego?” 

“You and your goddamn _devotion_ ,” Sarah mutters, but she’s swaying on her feet again and this time it looks more from exhaustion. 

“You can relate, can’t you? C’mon, you really need to sit down.” 

All around them, the forest has gone completely still and quiet -- now, as they pick their way across the valley floor towards Sarah’s discarded rucksack, a bird chimes in with a tentative call. Within moments, others join in. When Grace tries to support Sarah, she tugs away -- but more gently this time, less a violent rejection and more a refusal. Easing herself to sitting, Sarah pulls the bag towards her -- reaches into its open throat, rummaging through and ultimately pulling out a flask. 

At last, Grace gives into exasperation. 

“Are you _kidding_ me, Sarah?” 

“That bottle was to get wasted; this one is medicine. Are you really gonna turn it down after all that?” 

Grace’s hesitation doesn’t last long – many things in the past are overwhelmingly good. Sarah’s probably drinking the cheapest shit she could find, and even that makes the stuff Grace has had from the bunker brewers taste like kerosene. The swig she takes burns going down, but right now the sensation is comforting. 

“Ah, shit – bit the hell out of my tongue.” Sarah tests the split on her lip with a finger and winces. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.” 

Grace just waits. 

“Well? It was a surefire way to start a fight with you, one way or another.” 

“That’s... true. Did all that make you feel better?” 

“Yes and no. But that’s always the case, whether I’m fighting or… anyway. Even I can tell when I’ve crossed a line.” 

“Mm.” 

“...Be honest. You don’t actually think we’re going to stop what’s coming for us, do you?” 

Grace passes the flask back, looks down at where her fingers are twisted together. “Not really.” 

“So why even bother trying? We’re all fucked. All something-billion of us.” 

“... Maybe I do want a chance for this all to mean something. You know how many we lose? Your… Kyle, right? He must’ve told you.” 

“Didn’t need to. Poor guy was fucked up enough I could guess. Besides, after him there was only one loss that actually meant anything to me.” 

“I stopped counting bodies after my mom.” 

Sarah looks sharply over; Grace can see her in her peripherals. “...when?” 

“Early. After my dad died. Some men ambushed us, tried to kidnap me and my brother Matthew. She tried to protect us. They killed her on purpose, snapped his neck by accident. I got away.” 

“...Hmph.” Sarah moves as though to take another swig – but seems to think better of it. “No wonder Dani left an impression.” 

“Complicated kind of love.” 

“Not about to call you on your issues.” Sarah grins, then. “More’n I already have.” 

“For as good of a shot as you are, sometimes you really fucking miss the mark.” Yet all the venom is gone between them. Grace feels something trickling, sticky and slow down her temple. Touching fingers to her forehead, she feels a gash where Sarah struck her. “...Ow.” 

“This’ll dull it. Besides, won’t you be fine by tomorrow?” 

“It doesn’t work like that,” Grace retorts, but she tips the offered flask back again regardless.

Sarah’s still studying her. “Can you even _get_ drunk?” 

“Yeah. Fast. Sober up quickly, though. One of my metabolism’s many benefits or curses, depending on your perspective.” 

“Well, then, don’t overdo it. Dani being on one person’s case about this is more than enough.” 

“About that…” 

“Don’t push me. You should learn how to quit while you’re ahead.” 

**iii.**

Foremost in Sarah’s mind is a ripping-hot shower, considering her friend Lori’s cabin is still nearby. 

Age has her really feeling both the residual muzziness of her midday boozing and the focusing pain from where Grace hit her. She’s not about to let Grace hold her up on the way back, but she does appreciate Grace letting her go first. Strange comfort, having the future-soldier at her back, with whatever understanding they’ve solidified between them. Sarah wonders how long it’ll last, and then decides that’s a stupid thing to concern herself with. Long enough, most likely. Her wrist stings and so does her mouth. Already, they’re swelling up. The rest of her aches, well... she only has herself to blame for those ones – when she gives herself over to offensive maneuvers, she _really_ makes an effort. 

Cutting and running would be simple enough. Sarah would be lying, if she claimed that option was completely off the table. Escape hatch here. In case of emergency, break glass. It’s just that for the time being, Grace makes a compelling argument. Dani needs to be ready, and if Grace really _is_ as much of a mess as she says, then Sarah should keep herself around just to make sure neither of them does something completely stupid. 

Of course, all of those thoughts leave her mind when they arrive back, to see Dani clearly waiting for them: feet planted shoulder-width apart, back straight, arms crossed in front of her chest. She takes them in and goes from ready-to-lecture to dismay in an instant. 

Sarah hears her, as Dani rushes in – “What the _fuck_ happened?” – and then behind her is a faint noise of surprise from Grace as Dani goes in for Sarah first. 

That’s a shocker. So’s having Dani’s hands, gentler than Sarah was expecting, on her jaw - fingertips gently tipping Sarah’s face one way, then the other, and then pressing tenderly along the skin to check for where the damage is. Whatever it was that Sarah thought she was going to say is lost. She was expecting to be the afterthought. 

“I’m… gonna go get us some things to get cleaned up with,” Grace mutters stiltedly, and from the sheepish look that she’s wearing, Sarah can guess that the two of them had some sort of discussion before Grace left. Clearly, things didn’t go according to plan, whatever their plan had been. Dani lets her hands fall back to her side, eyes Grace as she goes, before turning her attention back to Sarah. 

“Listen,” Sarah says as Dani opens her mouth like she’s going to say something. She closes it again, folds her arms semi-protectively across her middle, and waits. “I’m the one who started shit. If it makes you feel better, Grace did all but run to try and get me to cut it out. It was pretty goddamn annoying, actually.” 

As she’s talking, Dani becomes slowly more unreadable. Sarah was expecting reproach, or a continuation of the outburst, but instead her face just goes strangely blank. 

“And?” 

“And what?” 

“What was the outcome?” 

A careful study of Dani’s tone tells her nothing. There’s flatness to it, and Sarah thinks she knows what it is: a way to cope, for Dani to insulate herself against anything that Sarah could tell her in case it hurts. She’s got no doubt that Grace will fill her in on all the details later, debrief with Dani, but right now Dani’s still waiting on the latest. And Sarah and Grace are both covered in evidence of a brawl, which could mean anything, despite the fact that they’ve returned together. 

There are some options here. Sarah could make some wisecrack – _bad news, kid, you’re gonna have to put up with me for a bit longer_. Defuse the tension with her usual cavalier nature - deflect attention away from everything that feels too enormous to say, or what she doesn’t want to have to confront. Or she could give what amounts to the factual, bullet-point review: _I tried to get drunk, shot up the woods a bit, then attacked your girlfriend. If you’re willing to overlook all of the bits of that which’re fucked up then maybe I could stick around after all._ Somehow, Sarah’s pretty certain that’s not gonna go over well, but beating Grace to the punch as far as the uglier aspects of this go might work in her favour. 

But Dani’s holding herself rigidly. Spine straight, careful, retreating back into herself despite the automatic urge she’d had to tend to the hurt.

That’s probably Sarah’s fault. This is the kind of paradoxical clarity, the sort of epiphany that Sarah only has when she’s mildly buzzed. 

She’s been going about this all wrong. 

For Sarah, this kind of confrontation is just… her life. She’s got decades of experience under her belt, and raised volume or decompression through violent means is part and parcel. So too is rapidly sweeping the results of that under the rug, avoiding consequences, leaving them in the dust. She’s been alone for so long, and most of her long-term friends don’t have to see or put up with her for longer than a few days at a time… so there’s no continuity. Sarah knows she’s a semi-controlled burn that passes for a person, a thunderstorm whose ferocity whips itself into being, howls and lashes, and then blows over just as quickly. She’s practiced at avoiding the destruction left behind in her own wake, or not concerning herself with the ruins. On top of that, any of her long-term relationships involve people who handle things the same way that she does, so there’s never been any need to explain herself. 

Dani isn’t that kind of person. She’s still… kind. Never takes things farther than they need to go, speaks her mind without getting mean about it, negotiates as a default reaction. No saint, but not as messed up as Sarah or Grace is. For how Dani is starting to guard herself, though, could be some damage is already being done.

Dani surely has certain expectations about how people interact with one another. Grace can handle the finer details of the recap, later, however she thinks is best. 

For now, Dani’s waiting for an answer. 

Maybe Sarah should try expressing things someone else’s way, for once.

Sarah reaches out, with both arms, and wraps Dani in a hug. 

When Dani inhales in surprise, Sarah squeezes a little tighter. She tucks Dani’s head under her chin. Staring straight out, over top of Dani’s head, she takes a deep breath in and out, to steady herself. 

“I’m sorry.” 

And then she lets go, just in time to witness Dani’s hands raise up as though she was about to return the embrace. To discourage that, because reciprocity isn't something she can handle right now, Sarah steps back, clearing her throat as she goes. Sarah can’t remember the last time she said those words and meant it. 

“I’m not an easy person to live with. Damn good thing your girlfriend can’t let shit like this sit, or else it would’ve gotten worse.”

In the background, Sarah can see Grace using a rag and some water to wipe down her face, dab at the abrasion on the side of her temple. Grace’s eyes lock to hers, and she nods – so Sarah knows she’s listening in. The corner of Sarah's mouth pulls up, despite herself.

It’s as though Sarah has rendered Dani speechless with her apology, but then Dani curls her fingers into a fist and punches Sarah in the bicep. On the arm that _wasn’t_ recently dislocated, but the impact still stings, catches Sarah completely off-guard. 

“Don’t do this again,” Dani says seriously. “You talk to us, if things are getting bad. Or we figure out something to do, together, that will help. _Before_ it becomes a problem. Understand?”

Her jaw has dropped open slightly, and Sarah closes it. Grace, turning away, can’t quite mask the small shit-eating grin that flashes onto her face before she regains some composure. 

“Sounds fair to me,” is what Sarah almost leaves it at. Can’t resist qualifying, “I’m gonna fuck it up sometimes, though.”

“We all will. We’re only human. So we'll deal with that when we need to.”

There’s not much left to say, and Sarah feels the need to give the two of them some space, privacy to talk out whatever needs discussing. So she hikes herself back up the trail towards Lori’s place. Tossing off her low whistle and inquiries is easy enough – _you should see the other guy_ , Sarah says, the old standby – and then she gets the shower she’s been craving. Near-scalding, scrubbing until her skin feels slightly raw and she’s been under the spray so long that her wrinkles get even more pronounced.

“You gonna join me for dinner? Poker afterwards?” Lori asks, while Sarah towels her hair to dried, and Sarah surprises them both by shaking her head.

“Got some things to take care of out back, but thanks.”

Avoidance might be easier. There's no predicting what she's walking back into - this day hasn't at all gone the way she plotted out in her head. It doesn't feel like she's been let off the hook, but it doesn't feel like Dani or Grace is interested in punishment either, and Sarah's not sure how to manage that. There's still plenty of light in the sky, though the sun is about to dip behind the tops of the trees by the time Sarah finally gets around to returning. Paints the top of them gold, and the sky a muted turquoise dipping through shades of orange behind the ragged, imperfect line of the treetops. Sarah rounds the corner in the trail that lets her see where they’ve set up the encampment, and she stops there on the periphery.

There’s Grace, some yards ahead, bent and crouching near the tent. All of her is folded in, until Dani calls to her from near the table. She’s arranging something there, along the surface of it, though Sarah can’t quite see what it is from this angle. Grace crosses to her, stands attentive at Dani’s shoulder. They lean together, heads close. When at last Dani tips her face up, she has a clear line of sight towards Sarah.

An instant, like so many times before, when Sarah feels like an intruder.

Until Dani smiles, beatific, and beckons.

“We’ve set you a place,” she calls.

So Sarah goes to join them.

**Fin.**

* * *

_Dani, you’re not the mother of some man who saves the future._ You’re _the future._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew - this story is finally done!  
> Thank you to [starfoozle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfoozle) for the Grace meta guide, the encouragement, and your generosity in beta-reading and copy-editing! Thank you also to [Tyellas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas) for the pointers and extensive consultation on worldbuilding details and “voice-checks” - you helped me make the world of this fic more fully realized. And to [dire_quail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dire_quail) for your encouragement and thoughts about Grace especially - she’s a complicated person to write for, but you helped me do so with greater confidence. 
> 
> Thank you also to everyone who read this work and understood what I was going for with it! Your comments and the conversation we've had around these characters and some of these issues means a lot to me. I really appreciate it. 
> 
> I hope you're all doing well.  
> Thank you, as always, for reading.


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